Swoopo is an interesting find for me. The basic idea is that of an auction site. They feature primarily tech stuff/video games/personal electronics. OK, nothing new there.
********* BEGIN SHAMELESS PLUG *********
If you live near a big-ish city and are looking for a real deal, I just stumbled on Groupon - it’s one of those coupon services where you buy a $25 dining coupon for $10, etc. GREAT deals on there (I’m excited to try this new restaurant that’s got some great reviews) and a great idea for a date night (if you’re looking!).
********* END SHAMELESS PLUG *********
However, they boast that these items are selling at ridiculously low prices. An xBox 360 just went for sub $20, most items are 50-80% off retail. How do they have such good bargains? Is it just that nobody’s heard of them yet so they’re getting away with a steal?
Not exactly.
For one, this isn’t “peer to peer” auctioning where consumers sell to consumers. The products being auctioned are actually posted by Swoopo. Then how do they keep the prices so low? Simple. They sell the right to bid. Every bid you submit sets you back $1. Well, that could be quite the bargain, right? I mean, you bid $1 and get a Wii for $70 (a $250 value for about $80 shipped). Not bad indeed. But then the caveats come crashing in:
First, every time you bid you extend the clock. That means no swooping in at the last second on an auction so you avoid the bidding war. eBay has us trained to believe that when there’s only a few minutes left and the price on an auction is still low, that’s the time to strike a bargain. Well, the time remaining on Swoopo is always low, encouraging bidding. The bids then extend the length of the auction up to a month or so from the time listed, meaning an auction can have less than a minute left for days, in theory.
Second, you don’t have the option of placing a high bid (but one that would still be a good bargain). For example, let’s say I want to bid $200 in a single bid at the last second for a Wii that’s currently listed at $45. Not so fast. Bid increments are set at $0.15. What? Well, yeah, that keeps the prices ridiculously low on expensive items. Meanwhile, remember that every time somebody bids, Swoopo gets $1. Not going to be around for the end of an auction? They have an automatic bidding tool that will take care of it for you. The problem? If somebody else has that tool, they will, in just a matter of seconds, burn through all the bids (remember, each worth $1) they’ve been allotted.
Some quick math for you (numbers may not be exact, but the principle’s the same). Let’s suppose they sell a Nintendo Wii for $45. At 15 cents/bid, that’s 300 bids. At 1 dollar / bid, that’s $300. Add that to the $45 plus about $10 shipping and they get $355 for a system they could buy retail for $250. One person gets a good deal on a Wii, but lots of people lose money in the process.
The long and short of it? Swoopo’s going to make bank. It’s a clever setup. It appears to feed on human competition and bargain hunters. I just hope whoever’s behind it has completely shrugged off their conscience so they can sleep at night in their bed of bid-bought-booty.
Update:
This is a little delayed, but Gadgetell posted an interesting interview with Chris Bauman. It kind of reminds me of ‘Thank You For Smoking’ - if Swoopo does get sued out of existence, I think Chris might make a great lobbyist for the tobacco industry. Just my opinion.
Update 2:
I recognize that, since writing this, Swoopo has dropped their bid prices to $.75 and then again to $.60. Looks like they have enough user base and don’t want to draw suspicion from the FTC (my guess) with ridiculous profits.
Additionally - great post on Swoopo as the Crack Cocaine of Auction Sites on TBM blog.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
First, let me say that I work for Swoopo, in the Cupertino, CA office.
Second, I do agree very much to your idea that eBay has trained many of us to think that their model is how an auction works. While profitable, eBay’s auctions don’t function like a live auction.
Third, I wanted to let you know that on 70% of our auctions, Swoopo does not make enough money from bids to cover the cost of the product. So, it is a bit of a gamble for us in hopes that we can cover all of our product costs with the remaining 30% of the auctions.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Chris,
I appreciate the non-defensive and informative feedback. It’s always great to have someone reply to a blog post in a way that actually adds something to general information about the topic of the post.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
No need for hatred, I always say.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
SCAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 30th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Nice try Chris, for your nice attitude. While I won’t completely believe you and your claims. Swoopo makes more than enough to make up for in the %30. Much much more.
October 7th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
It’s a scam. Plain and simple.
Log in to swoopo.com and look look at the laptops. Then in another browser window go to swoopo.co.uk and look at the laptops. The swoopo gangsters sell a $1200 laptop and a £1200 laptop (which are totally different models and specifications) on each site but they combine the bids. For example see:
http://www.swoopo.co.uk/auction/acer-aspire-8920g-18-4-core-2-duo-notebo/104120.html
and
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-vaio-vgn-fw140e-16-4-core2duo-vista/104120.html
This is TOTALLY FRAUDULENT - AND CRIMINAL!!!
How these guys get away with this is beyond me. I might as well be bidding on an Andy Warhol in NYC and someone else standing in London bidding on a Corvette and the bids being combined.
This site needs shut down, and the german guy that’s running is locked up.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Tim,
Interesting light to shed on the subject. I’d point out that with a penny auction, it looks like Swoopo sold that laptop for over $17,000 USD.
I’d be interested to hear how Chris Bauman would reply to this subject. Does Swoopo use the same auction for different items in different countries to increase the bid pool?
It makes sense for them, since you don’t have the same daily ebbs and flows of traffic. (Things are busier in the UK when they’re dead in the US).
October 7th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
HAHAHAHA…..saying swoopo doesn’t make money on 70% of their auctions. That’s funny. I wonder how they are still around??? Gee?????
October 7th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Chuck,
Well, arguably, I could sell 10 products that cost me $10 each. If I sell 7 at $9, but 3 at $100, my overall profit is $263. So I’ve made a pretty penny but could still say that I’d lost money on 70% of my sales. So, his fact could be correct.
I’d be curious when that data was accurate, though. I’ve looked through the auctions recently and there don’t seem to be many if any that are going for a loss.
Again, Chris, I’d appreciate a response.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
first for Chris to paint swoopo as a charitable organization is ludacris. no business has it in its business model to lose money; so don’t give us this crap about not covering your cost on 70% of the auctions. let us be clear that every $100 in bids means $666 for swoopo so if an auction rises to say $800, it means that they make $5,333. its true that if you happened to be the last bidder and you only spend one dollar biding you got off cheap but this hardly ever happens and over the long or short run you are bound to lose and swoopo is bound to win big - Vegas anybody!!
October 20th, 2008 at 10:20 am
this is a scam..went to the website..bought some bids, I”ll stick with ebay. This place is a rip off
October 21st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Be creative and you’ll break the swoopo code. Right now I’m working on some models that will help the average Joe work effectively and efficiently on the auctions without wasting your money.
Give me a few days and I’ll have some research for sale on my site. Send me a message at beatswoopo@gmail.com if you want some more info.
Good luck bidding guys and there’s a way around the madness on
October 21st, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Yes, it is a ripoff. do a simple search in google for
Namiansisa - as i noticed, $50 too late, that Namiansisa
was the one person doing autobids (via BidButler) that was always jacking up the price. Law and behold, Namiansisa actually bids all over the world, germany, UK… you get the point. As in any Casino the house always wins. Let me know send the networks an email.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:15 am
Well spotted Hector:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Namiansisa&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Namiansisa might not be the house. Could be a person realizing potential for overseas purchases to save money if shipping is cheaper.
Look deeper into the hidden costs.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:33 am
thanks for posting this i joined yesterday i have just closed my account
what a bunch of scammers
thanks again for the post
October 29th, 2008 at 1:21 am
The guy working for Swoopo made a statement about eBay
brain-washing us to believe the eBay model is how an
auction should be and that Ebay auctions are not how
real life auctions are like.
Well, I guess in real-life, everyone who wants to bid
on something would need to first purchase the amount of
bids they want for $1 each and cannot redeem it back
even if they decide not to bid on anything? And in
real-life auctions, the price goes up by a fixed amount
whenever everyone submit their bid at $1/bid?
In the real-life auctions that I know of, the price
goes up by the amount submitted by the last bid and
people do not have to pay money everytime they make a
bid. In this case they lose money just to bid. The
Swoopo way is exactly opposite of real-life auctions.
The only thing that’s real about Swoopo is that their
auctions end within a certain amount of time after the
last bid (going once, going twice, sold!).
Tell everyone to stay away from Swoop.com unless t
they’re willing to gamble.
There is only one guaranteed winner (Swoopo) and a
whole lot of people losing money at $1/bid everything
they try to grab something for cheap.
Swoopo also operated illegally in several states
without proper commerce permits. Also, once you buy
your bids, there is no way get your money back for
unused bids. It’s very much like gambling and not an
auction. However, in most gambling you could cash-out
anytime you like and trade in your chips for cash. Not
at Swoopo. They really want to take your money!
In no auction do you have pay every time you submit a
bid. You only pay when you are the highest bidder. With
Wwoopo, you pay to bid and you pay again to buy with
many of the “auctions”.
STAY AWAY!
One thing I want to make a note is…
From my experience, sometimes I sit there and keep
refreshing my screen what seems like minutes after the
last bid. It seemed like the auctions should have
ended 20 secs. after the last bid is placed if no more
bid is submitted. However, the moment I submit a bid
minutes after the last one, I either get outbid within
a few seconds or sometimes even a minute of two
afterwards when I thought I’ve already won the auction.
SO BEWARE! THERE IS DEFINITELY SOMETHING NOT RIGHT
ABOUT SWOOPO!
October 29th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I have proof that this damn thing is a scam. I have seen this several times before, but the site clearly uses BOTS and misinforms individuals. Here is a screenshot taken from someone who was making HUNDREDS OF BIDS. (I WAS WATCHING THIS)…then when the auction ENDED, it said the person only used…..ONE BID. (AND ZERO “FREE BIDS”) You don’t even have to take my word for it, the screenshot speaks for itself!!!! (Just look at the “Bid History” and you can plainly see at LEAST 4 bids!) This site is a TOTAL SCAM.
http://www.screenshothost.com/screens/_5369385.gif
1. You have NO WAY OF KNOWING whether the product really exists or not.
2. YOU HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING IF THE PERSON WHO WON IS REAL OR NOT (No profiles, no contact info, NOTHING).
I spent 20 bucks on this crap, but now I’m done. SCAM! STAY AWAY!
Here is the PROOF:
http://www.screenshothost.com/screens/_5369385.gif
October 29th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
LESSEFFECTIVE,
I’d appreciate it if you could check out the screenshot above and comment on it or respond; or ask Mr. Bauman what the hell is going on. Email me back if you hear anything as I’m dying to know how Swoopo can explain away that doozy.
October 29th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
First of all, for the people who claim that swoopo.com is a scam… you may want to check your strategies on playing the game. If you’re like me and lucky enough to win, then you may have something positive to say about the website.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
****Disclaimer - I work for Swoopo****
The above screen shot, I believe to be tampered, as does my entire team. If you read the URL in the screen shot captured by “Proof that it is a scam” - the last 6 digits are the auction ID number. That is our standard format. Here is the actual auction end page.
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/113053.html
You can clearly see that the winner used 201 bids to win.
To address your other 2 concerns:
1 - Every item on our site is real, and is won by real people. To date over $1.5 Million in products have been won and shipped to winners globally.
2 - We do not have bidder profiles, but we are never going to publish our bidder’s contact information. That would be a violation of privacy. But, you can contact anyone at Swoopo - http://www.swoopo.com/feedback.html?sli=1
Unless you live in the Silicon Valley, Munich or London, where all of our offices are, then I guess you will have to take us at our word that we are real.
@Hector, @Duarte, @Dave, the user names of bidders will appear on everyone of our domains. Why? Most every auction that we have is a global auction. So, on the .com site, you will see bidders that have registered on the .de site and are bidding on the same auction. No, Namiansisa is not a bot, or clever shipping magnate. Just a username.
Hope this clears things up a bit.
November 1st, 2008 at 7:13 pm
If people actually knew how to bid at the right time, maybe people wouldn’t get scammed, I won many things from Swoopo, everything works fine, everything is brand new. But yeah, sure, its a gambling site, so you will think its a scam when you buy bids, but yet it doesn’t stop people for bidding at a poker game at a casino.
November 1st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
The only thing that has value on swoopo is bids. You want to beat the system then you need to use some real money to bid on a few blocks of 300 bids, Then you use those blocks of bids to bid on other blocks of bid. Do this until you have created a momentum of what should be an endless pool of bids. Then start to use that endless pool to bid on and win items. Turn those items around on ebay.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
this site drives on greed of the economist? and or stupidity.
If you cant see that they sell the product for cheaper
but due to greed you wont let that person have it at that cheap price.
I saw a phone sell for $20 and they said actual price $49., .15 cents into $20 ($133 plus 20 = $155)
they cant loose.
They did not sell a phone they sold chance (bids dollars) to get a phone at a low price.
the only way they dont get 2,3,5ect percent profit
is if they sell a square that fits into a round hole
(something nobody actully wants)
They Also “Auction” bids forsale
CLEVER SETUP
BUT A MORAL SCAM NONE THE LESS
IF THEY CLASSIFY THEM SELVES AS CASINO
THIER PROFITS WILL GO 1000 PERCENT CAUSE THAT GREEDY PERSON NOW HAS THE MONKEY ON HIS BACK.
ITS GAMBLING SAY SO AND HECK I WOULD EVEN TRY A DOLLAR OR TWO, YEAH RIGHT LOL
THANKS RD
November 5th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Chris, it would be nice if it was made clear on the Swoopo homepage that most of the auctions are international. I mean come on, if you’re on the Swoopo uk website and see auctions priced in GBP, then one would assume that particular auction has UK based participants *only*. I mean you only find out the quoted information when you click on the help page:
“Why the 7p increase? It’s because many auctions run internationally and are priced in Euros in other countries. To keep things fair, we convert 10 euro cents to 7p (that’s about £1 = €1.43).”
And tbh, I was watching an auction on a Wii Fit package, opened another window to the US Swoopo and saw the *exact* same auction being played out (with the same countdown and same bidder names), this time converted to US dollars. So please, even if after all your claims you insist on being fair or whatever, at least try and make things a bit more clearcut for idiots like me who sign up.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Oh, and clear up the confusion I have with this:
http://www.swoopo.co.uk/auction/-40-cash-/104839.html
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/-40-cash-/104839.html
Same winner, different currency..?
November 7th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
It seems that the user Namiansisa is a human. Did a Google search on the user and it came up with this:
http://feedback.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=namiansisa&ftab=FeedbackAsSeller
Seems as if Namiansisa is a German user who bids on Swoopo with the intention of flogging the stuff on eBay.
Sweet.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
http://www.screenshothost.com/screens/_5369385.gif
That link is verified and true! I don’t even know HOW to doctor screen shots for godssake!! Any technician on your site could easily go to a closed auction and change the amount of bids the “winner” used….so its much easier for you to doctor your webpage than it is fro me to doctor a screen shot.
Chris, if you are running a legitimate GAMBLING SITE, than good for you, but honestly, that screen shot came from your website. Please, please, DO NOT make the mistake of calling the community a pack of liars and just admit it if your site has a programming error because that screen shot is 100% real. (I’ve seen the same “error” on multiple occasions). So either you are in a state of denial or you are just trying to cover something up. Either way, you should TELL THE TRUTH.
Also, how does contacting SWOOPO do anything about being able to see the information on OTHER USERS?? How do we know if they are even REAL? We don’t!! Your site is shady and it such a deceptive company….i feel bad that they made you the scape goat for maintaining is reputation because it honestly will get shut down soon… (trust me, as a laywer, I know)
November 12th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Rofl @ you!
November 12th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Chris,
Thanks for addressing most of the comments. However you missed out the most interesting one - that of Tim Forrester (October 7th, 2008 at 1:43 pm). You confirm that the last six digits are the auction ID, and that your auctions are international, so Tim’s concerns and observations seem to have some grounding. What isn’t explained is how the items auctioned can be different??? Two auctions and only one winner - now that’s just wrong. These aren’t screen grabs, not tampered with - just links to finished auctions.
I’d love an explanation.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:26 am
well i dont know if chris is telling the truth but swoopo is truly a scam. when a “penny auction” is held, they make $100 for every dollar the auction goes up. i have seen $1899 tvs go up to $3500. that means they made roughly $160,000 on bids alone! on 1 tv. usually they have 10 tvs going at a time. if those end in a week, they made $1,600,000 on just a section of the site in a week. in a month they make $6,400,000. somebody please correct me, that sum just seems too big…
November 14th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I just tried it for the first time and I tried bidding on 50 free bids in the first timers area. I did notice a random name bidding far more than 50 times which had me wondering. I mean I know people are dumb but not that dumb are they? It is definitely a scam. It would be great if they provided transparency to the whole thing and they should be investigated. When it was all said a done that random name won the 50 bids, now I’m feeling like the stupid one for $20 that I spent, what a rip off but lesson learned!
November 16th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Hey everyone,
I know I posted on here a little while back, but I wanted to let you know that I just finished my ebook (on sale on my website for $19.99) that I feel will greatly help some of you that feel they are at a loss on Swoopo.com. Feel free to jump over to my website at http://www.beatswoopo.com and check things out. Also, don’t hesitate to email me at at either of the following:
beatswoopo@gmail.com
support@beatswoopo.com
Cheers and happy bidding!
-Dave
November 17th, 2008 at 12:07 am
omg i just started swoopo and won a Ps3 for 28 buck! it came today! it works! i only bid 2 times! wow i guess im lucky, eh?
November 17th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Well I don’t know what the deal is I opened an account and won the first day.It cost me some bids at first but when u figure it out its a snap.
November 18th, 2008 at 7:51 am
I describe Swoopo as you being a jockey in a horse race and playing 8 bingo cards at the same time. If swoopo were a scam it most certainly will be shut dowm eventually. As it becomes more popular and more people become disenchanted, more notifications go out to the net authorities. Gambling falls under the gise of entertainment and swoopo is just that. I’ve tried all the different auctions and a multitude of stratgies and I have not won. With that being said I do not think they are a scam. Lastly I have seen a couple disturbing things that needs comment. There are people who are hooked or addicted to swoopo. After an auction has ended I look at the savings percentage, on a very recent flat screen auction I saw 0%. This person wanted to win so bad he placed 2493 bids for a MSRP of $1199.00, date 11/16/08. That does not include the $169.00 to buy and ship the TV. Next after studying and bidding myself, I begin to recognize the bidders names and they are cranking out the bids. Where are getting the money? Some are on free bids but OMG! Some names you seem to see them 24/7. not with the bid butler system but with single bids.
I think there are deals to be had here but I would careful Pride,greed and addiction are in all us it’s the one who walks away with the most money in their pocket, not toys, who wins.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I’m sorry but this explanation of international bidders is BS! Unless the person on the website through single bid auctions has Octopus arms and about 10 computers, there is no way they can be bidding all over the place.
I have seen many bids end showing a total of bids from the winner being as one, but the actual bid history has more than just one. It is either a programming glitch, or I would believe in my oipnion a bot glitch.
November 23rd, 2008 at 12:22 am
Sounds like we all need to start our own Swoopo, and start raking in the cash.
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:55 am
If it’s not a SCAM it will do until one comes along as they used to say! STAY AWAY!
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:57 am
If it’s not a SCAM it will do until one comes along as they used to say! STAY AWAY!
I have never posted here before and tried Swoopo only today.
November 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
SWOOPO has a “time bomb” business model:
* Devise a business model whereby you make a little money from a lot of unsuspecting people, until they eventually come to realize that they’re being had. By the time the “word gets out”, you’ve made millions and can close up shop without a worry.
The key to Swoopo’s business model is to make people PAY to bid. Those payments more than fund the difference of the winner’s auction price from the wholesale cost of the item. AND as more people get interested in an auction, such as for an iPod Touch 16Gb seeming to go for a very low price, the price may even close HIGHER than RETAIL. Swoopo ends up making a KILLING.
BTW, check out the VERY LAST paragraph on their terms document:
We would like to advise all users to monitor their bidding practices. Placing bids online at
www.Swoopo.com frequently or repeatedly can incur high costs. Users should therefore pay
attention to their bidding practices and check their charges regularly
November 23rd, 2008 at 11:21 am
SWOOPO is a fraudulent business.
SWOOPO is a fraudulent business.
SWOOPO is a fraudulent business.
They are fraudulent in that the “deal” is an ILLUSION. They make money off of people placing a bid, as it costs $1 per bid. They then advertise the use of their “Bid Butler” that will bid for you. Guess what? EVERYTIME the Bid Butler bids, it costs you $1. Swoopo is more than happy to make you pay by letting bidders activate multiple Bid Butlers on the same auction. There is one winner to the auction and many losers, all of whom pay Swoopo.
I am amazed that this outfit was not shut down in Europe, where regulations tend to be more strict. Their approach must be to confuse everyone. Very clever. The website looks like an auction site, but it is not. They ship out merchandise to the winner, which is legitimate. So… the illusion is pulled off. No wonder why that states in the USA are progressively catching on and banning this Swoopo service.
BAN THEM! BAN SWOOPO! REPORT THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS!
November 23rd, 2008 at 12:33 pm
There are a lot of people who don’t seem to piece together the logic of this system. First off, how hard is it to figure out that one item is being bid on internationally? Yes, there is a listing on the Germany site, and the US site, and Britain site…and…the same person won all of them. Could it be that they are the same auction displayed in local currencies? No, that would be to easy. It must be a conspiracy.
As for everyone’s math, do a little research. If an item sells at a fixed price of $69 to the winner of the auction, what do you care if the bidding gets up to a $1,000,000? Your bid still only costs you one dollar and is completely dependent upon timing and the whim of you competitors. Why hate a company for profiting? It is the way the world works.
As for whomever said that charging to enter a contest is illegal in their state…take a look at the registration. They do not serve Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Tennessee, Vermont, Puerto Rico and protectorates.
It is all about reading folks. All of it, not just enough to scorn.
November 23rd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
http://www.toddedwards.us/img/swoopo_scamo.png
Original Item:
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/-1-000-cash-/120421.html
How do you justify an auction for $1000 cash currently with a bid of $2682.75 @ $1 per $.15 bid?! Get real.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Actually, they dont have to pay for the $1000bux. The highest bidder just wins it. It says 100% off
November 24th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I looked at the screen shot and if you look at the bid history, the bottom bid runs over the over the break line. This screenshot was doctored. take a look at the bottom Palou and you’ll see what I’m saying.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Look at this link and tell me a bot didn’t do the bidding, no one is stupid enough to spend more for less, that’s bullshit:
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/300-freebids-voucher/121738.html
Here is another prime example of a bidding bot. They spent roughly $580 on a $475 product.
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/samsung-nc10-10-2-netbook/123119.html
and come on, 2000 $1 bids on a thousand bucks?
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/-1-000-cash-/120421.html
Chris you have some explaining.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
If it’s a 100% off auction the winner still has to pay the bids he placed, doesn’t he?
November 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
you all need to read more carefully… read up on what the “100%” off stuff means. it makes sense to bid five trillion dollars for 50 free bids - because after 100% is deducted from five trillion dollars, you pay nothing. if you’re the last person to place that bid (the five-trillionth bid), then you spend 1 dollar and win 50 bids. very simple. just read. a simiar scenario goes for fixed price items. you people who are calling swoopo users “morons” for bidding higher than the item cost… you are the real morons! do some reading and you’ll see how right they are.
pretty much, see Jorge’s post above, he understands it. furthermore, it is my opinion that swoopo isnt doing anything wrong… its their business, they give the literature to educate you - if you’re too dumb to read and understand it, don’t use it.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I apologize for some of my spelling and a few of the double words. I type all day so at the end of my day, fat-fingered keystrokes are the in
Just a note match=math
November 26th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Alright, I just mailed the Swoopo support team and they said that you have to pay for the bids you placed. That way the end price has not to be paid(100%off-auction), while you still have to pay for the bids you placed(e.g. 200 bids = 200$). So it’s pretty stupid to place 2000 bids to win 1000 free bids.
November 26th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I’m not denying that the people behind swoopo are some smart fuckers, maybe without morals but smart nonetheless.
I just want me an affordable laptop
November 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Victums are bidding a Philips 42″ LCD to $2011.35 now, and the time are extended for 40min more, seems that there are a lot of victums using the bidbulter.
That means Swoopo is earning $2011.35/0.15 = $13,409 the mas. If half of them are free bids and half are paid bids, Swoopo is earning lots of money.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Swoopo is using Ad by Google to place the link of Swoopo to various shopping or BlackFriday web sites. They are driving a lot of shoppers to their site. Google should have stop selling ad for them.
November 26th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I have submitted complaint to Google on their Ad. I hope more complant from others will encourage Google to take action.
http://services.google.com/feedback/abg?url=http://www.theblackfriday.com/&hl=en&client=ca-pub-7538719018238863&adU=www.Swoopo.com&adT=ImageAd&exp=Ads+by+Goooooooogle&done=1
November 26th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
What a RIPOFF!!!! Hopefully people will read the info on this site before they lose their money. STAY AWAY from the SWOOPO site.
November 27th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
We have just contacted Hans from TV in Boston to start an investigation on swoopo.
November 29th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
It may not be a scam but it certainly is inexcusable profiteering.
let’s say a $1300 laptop sells for $200 in a penny auction on Swoopo. $200 worth of pennies is 20,000 and at $1 per bid, the site takes in $20,000 plus the $200 winning bid. Making that much money selling a $1300 product is profiteering.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Does anyone know if they are actually selling items, or just having ‘In House’ bidders winning and pocketing all the money??? You thought Video gambling was a scam, welcome to this new scam!!
December 4th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I love the site. Great concept… It’s a win-win situation for everyone: The company earns money, the looser gets entertainment value, and the winner gets a great deal.
Of course they are actually selling the stuff. Maybe 1000 people try to get the same item, if you are the lucky person to bid when the timer ends, you get the item.
Can you buy a $1700. item for 30 clicks? 200 clicks? 1000 clicks?
I would think that every Obama supporter, democrat, and socialist would be head over heels for this kind of thing…
…Everyone working together, pooling their money, to pay for one of us common people to get a great bargain.
And the best part is that it is a lot of fun, and completely voluntary! …Not like when the government takes our money and redistributes it for our own good…
December 5th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I also signed up 4 swoopo thinking it was a bargin though if i bought enough bids I could win so i bought 375 bid the problem was this other bidders would never stop bidding even when they were losing money on the item, the still keep bidding.
Price: $122.19
All prices are in US Dollars
Winner: Deluxe10
This auction ended on
Oct-30-2008, at 22:59 PST
Congratulations,
Deluxe10!
Savings: 0%
Savings:
Worth up to: $1,649.99
Placed bids (2568): $1,926.00
FreeBids (0): $0.00
Final price: $122.19
Savings: $0.0
The person placed 2568 bids obviously a bot willing to pay whatever to win back prize. They must of forgot to edit this one.
Pretty obvious its a scam. I told paypall to investigate and hold the funds frozen. All of a sudden swoopo started to email me and give me the run around after it was clear paypal said they couldnt do anything in this case. Swoopo told me that paypal froze my account so i couldn’t bid. I contacted paypal they said no it was not frozen. Forwarded to swoopo. They told me they were trying to give me back the money that I had not yet spent $200 dollars. Then all of a sudden they stopped replying to my emails. No matter what they would just no respond. My account on swoopo is still blocked with 300 bids that I still can’t use. I paid for them and can’t return them or use them. And they won’t contact me back, been like a month and 7 emails. Save yourself the heart ach dont waste yout time or money on a fraudelent company.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Thanks for posting this article for everyones feedback. totally helpful. gonna save me time and money registering with swoopo. Its funny that I went thru alot of these posts and i only saw two posts- from “that guy” and “bid winner” that say they actually won something, the rest of th posts are complaints and I saw a few posts defending the site, but none praising it. To me that’s enough to let me know swoopo probably is not going to work for me. I wonder if “that guy” and “bid winner” are real consumers or if they work for swoopo. hahahaha
December 6th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Thanks for all your contributions. I was very skeptical of the very low priced deals Swoopoo has been advertising. This blog simply confirms the old tried and true adage: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is!!!”
December 6th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I think the camera isn’t really a ripoff.
IF YOU SIT THERE AND WAIT IT OUT HOWEVER LONG MAY BE WITH ABOUT 1600 BIDS AND EVENTUALLY YOU’LL.
win with a discount and it doesn’t cost must to ship.
Then sell it on EBAY for like 600$ profit.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:04 am
If you find an auction with a bid butler bidder.
i think the only way to win that item.
is to actually become a bidbutler.
b/c you never know when his bids will run dry.
thats where the luck of singlebidder comes in to play…
December 6th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Its called Entertainment Shopping. What is most gambling considered? Entertainment! What people fail to do is develop a solid strategy in order to win goods or play by the rules that are easily found on their website.
I have purchased bids, haven’t won anything as of yet. But the idea completely feeds into the human condition of getting product for less money. But did swoopo tell you to purchase their bids and you are guaranteed to win? No.
Gotta pay to play, gotta play to win.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Are you serious? How do you figure this is a scam? From the first day I saw and READ how swoopo worked I realized how they were making enough money so that they could give away a macbook for $4.So were is the “scam” part come in? Or maybe you just feel scamed because you actually believed a legitimate sight was “auctioning” off 42″ TV’s for $200 and didn’t realize it till they had already had your $50 in bids. Just cause someone found a clever way to make money doesn’t make it a scam, just means they thought of a way to get 50 dollars our of your pocket with little work.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Well it might not be q popular group. I’m certainly not using them again.
December 10th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I hated the experience enough to register the domain:
http://www.swoopo-scam.com
Please link to it or forward the URL to compulsive shoppers you may know. Warn them.
December 10th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I’ve been staring at a couple of active auctions for the past hour and can not imagine how anyone can sit and bid on these things. I mean, with eBay, if you lose your bid at the last second, you scream and yell for a few minutes and move one. Here, if you bid with 2 seconds left, your screen hangs for nearly 5 more seconds and then, suddenly, there are 2 minutes added back to the auction and the prices jumps up by $2. I’d be throwing my monitor out the window by then.
….
At first, I thought this was a pretty cool idea. Now that I’ve had a chance to study it (and read all these responses), I can only imagine a whole bunch of computer nerds at SWOOPO, sitting around their servers going “CHA-CHING CHA-CHING CHA-CHING!!” This is a scam if you try “playing” their little game. If you’re smart, you’ll keep away. Even if you happen to get a good deal the first time, your future bids are going to break ya!
December 10th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
@SimpleMath - I hate to say this, but I totally agree with your comment. “SCAM” usually means your money is taken and no product is received. So, since we haven’t heard anyone say that products are being shipped, then SCAM is probably an incorrect description.
However…
You must admit, they are not freely pointing out how much money you CAN stand to lose on bidding. Their sample “how you bid” screen shows you winning with only one bid. What they SHOULD show is a screen about a mile long on how long it actually takes you to sit, bid, scream when it lags, and continue losing money BEFORE you (might) win.
With eBay, it’s pretty clear how much you are going to pay. And, as a seller, they always have a link next to your starting bid that shows their fees.
December 10th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Ultimate SCAM… the items on bid are monitored by the workers. You don’t get a chance at a last bid because SWOOP will never let you win the bid. So everyone, pls be weary… SHIT sites like this should be removed. As if we didn’t have enough to deal with in this troubling economy…
December 10th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
…but wait…
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/wii-nintendo-console-wii-sports/128607.html
OMG - WII for $11.55????
December 10th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Has anyone here actually WON something at an incredible price and has no regrets using this service??
December 10th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I’m not sure I understand why everyone keeps using the “do the math” argument. If 8,000 bids were placed then Swoopo makes “X” for the item. If the bids are non refundable then haven’t they already made their money? The bids are all prepaid.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
And, I’m also not sure I understand the “workers are monitoring the auctions” argument either. Do you guys mean that they are monitoring the “hot” auctions or all auctions? Say for instance that they sell 100 PS3s today. How many of them are going for under retail? How many are going for over retail?
December 13th, 2008 at 7:48 am
If the number of bids * price of bids + final auction price > retail price, you lose money. In every other case you save money.
It is only a scam if you neglect doing the math for your bidding. Normally, this is how scams work, they prey in the ignorance of the target.
However, in this case, it is hard to argument that the user did not have basic math skills or that the rules were not properly explained.
Compulsive people are victims of this kind of set up, but if they were compulsive eaters, would they blame McDonalds? It’s an interesting economics question.
Those who vehemently call the system a scam because the company makes money based on the exploitation of a class of people (the buyers), well, you are right. But the scam is the capitalist system, not the web site.
I haven’t seen any proof here that the company manipulates the bidding process. If they did, it would indeed be a scam, but in order to find out you would have to be able to present a court case.
If you make a search in google for how many bids the winner places, you will notice that some people are incredibly stupid (i.e., placing 800 bids for a $600 item).
In the context of the capitalist society, where you spend your time and health (non renewable) working for somebody else who accumulates money (that they will pass down) you will notice that is this stupidity what makes the world go round.
@Michael.
This is the opposite of socialism. In socialism the collective works for the good of the collective. In capitalism the collective works for the good of the individual.
The illusion, both in the capitalist system and in swoopo is that the individual may actually win (call it be rich) when they are actually bound to stay the same or worst by design.
December 13th, 2008 at 9:31 am
@ Franklin: “I haven’t seen any proof here that the company manipulates the bidding process. If they did, it would indeed be a scam, but in order to find out you would have to be able to present a court case.”
I agree completely. The premise of the site is perfectly legal and ethical to me. In fact, it’s a brilliant idea - I wish I thought of it myself. Don’t like spending a couple $? Don’t play then. Always outbid at the last second? Unless you have good proof that it is the operator manipulating the bidding process, please realise that it is the internet and one can well imagine many swoopo addicts across 2 nations waiting for the right time to swoop in.
They are not misrepresenting themselves in any way. Buyers know that they are paying for the bid. I wish I’d thought of this idea myself.
December 18th, 2008 at 8:28 am
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/-1-000-cash-/120421.html
Scam or not who would place 2084 bids costing them $1,563.00 to win $1,000. Does this equal $563 of entertainment?
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-vaio-vgn-fw170j-h-16-4-core-2-duo-n/101046.html
2020 bids costing $1,515.00 to win a laptop worth up to $1,399.99.
Yea, I wasted $22.50 on the site. Virtually impossible to win items.
December 20th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Thank you for this fee back page, and thanks too all whom commented. I was a new used, but not anymore, 100% scam.
December 21st, 2008 at 2:17 am
Please see this item:
http://www.swoopo.co.uk/auction/sony-vaio-fw11s-16-4-laptop-vista-/130580.html
BID BIDDER TYPE
£208.28 Alecia0211 BidButler
£208.27 Hornet900 SingleBid
£208.26 Alecia0211 BidButler
£208.25 Nikkolino SingleBid
Savings:
Worth up to: £949.99
Placed bids (3797): £1, 518.80
FreeBids (75): £0.00
Final price: £208.28
Savings: £0.00
Then you may think about it. Is it really Alecia0211 who would buy near 4000bids from swoopo? 4000 bids = £1600!! Just think if it was you, would you pay that money?
Also think about the item price, it is worth £949.99, why did Alecia0211 bid 3797 by using BidButler? It means that Alecia0211 might set more higher price in BidButler. If you, would you act as this way or Alecia0211 was one of Swoopo staffs?
In my opinion, I belive that how Swoopo is making money from this way!! Becareful!!
December 21st, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I’ve won an auction so it’s definately not a scam. They are obviously making plenty money for themselves but it’s all totally transparent they are not hiding anything are they?
December 26th, 2008 at 9:59 am
you people who are crying “scam” are a bunch of idiots. the site isn’t a scam, and the rules are pretty simple. that being said, i have found a few inconsistencies.
first of all, for those who don’t like the fact that they are global auctions, i would say “why do you care?” why does it matter? yes, the currency conversions seem a bit off, but nothing that is completely outrageous. people only bring up the global aspect of it when they are trying to cry “scam” and are posting links of the same competition in 2 different places (i.e. co.uk and .com). but that is only because the poster is an idiot and doesn’t understand the way things work.
part of the problem is, you people are failing to see the beauty of swoopo.com, and how it is highlighting the failures of the human psychy. many auctions are ending for more than the items are worth, but there is actually some explanation.
first of all, one needs to check and see what kind of auction it is. there are “100% off” auctions, “fixed price” auctions, “nailbiter” auctions, “penny bid” auctions, and regular auctions.
if you look, most regular auctions have the auction ending for less than the item is worth. this is ideal for the buyer, but is ideal for swoopo.com once an item hits a certain price. using the American rates of $.75 per bid with increases of $.15 per bid, you can find the point at which each item becomes profitable.
using W = item worth, and b = # of bids, the point at which swoopo.com breaks even can be said as: W - .75b - .15b = 0, which ends up showing that W = .9b, and b = (10/9)W.
so, for a playstation 3 worth $400, the price needs to hit $66.66, which is roughly 445 bids. this means that swoopo.com would have generated $333.75 from bids, and if you take $333.75 + $66.75 (the price the user would pay if they won at that exact moment, rounded up), you’d have $400.50, which is just about right to break even. this means that any more bids above $66.75 is profit for swoopo.com in this instance. this is in the case of a regular auction. the formulas change for the penny auction.
an easy way to say it is to just take the final price, multiply that times 5, subtract how much the item is worth, and you see the profit for that item (for regular options, not penny options).
often times, you will see these regular options end up being more money than the item is worth, especially when the winner has used hundreds of bids to win it. this is the beauty of swoopo.com. it shows just how stupid and greedy people are, and shows us how we can’t just quit and cut our losses. the problem is, if you’ve invested $50 or $100 worth of bids, it is going to be extremely hard for you to walk away, as you have invested so much money, and it would be for nothing if you quit now. this is the same concept as a slot machine. people think “i’ve spent $100 which is too much, but it has to hit soon, i just know it. if i quit now, i am just out $100″. they keep pumping the machine as they have become too invested, and swoopo.com is a great way to sit back and watch people do it.
where swoopo.com makes the big money is in its “fixed price” or “100% off” auctions. in these auctions, the winner either wins the prize for “free” or wins for a fixed price (i.e. the winner may pay only $20 for an iPod regardless of how high the price goes). the beauty in these are that, in essence, there is no reason for the auction to ever lose. there is no threshold in which the price can become uneconomical, because for every new bidder, they know exactly how much it will cost them. i saw one auction that was for $1,000 cash, and the price had hit $1,500 (i don’t know why they keep the price on these auctions. it actually makes no sense, as it has nothing to do with the winner. i think it is there to still play with the psychy of the competitors). watching the brief bid history was amazing. people would commit a few hundred bids, thinking “it can’t go any higher”, and then it would. they would bow out, and another would take their place. idiots…
i admit, the “100% off” and “fixed price” auctions are in no way an auction. they are a contest of endurance and stupidity with a hit of strategy. but they aren’t scams. the rules and premise are simple. in fact, they are genius, and i wish i had thought of this earlier. you can capitalize on the greed of our society. it’s delicious to watch.
the one fault i have found is with the bidbutler. i dont think it is working correctly. according to the rules, it should only submit another bid in the last 10 seconds. but i have seen items that have a lot more time than 10 seconds left jump up in price and time due to bidbutler bids. it didn’t work as advertised, which is probably a programming bug.
i have never used swoopo.com, but i love to sit and watch the auctions run. it makes me laugh to know that people are losing their asses for no good reason. i like to see people who are incredibly stupid lose it all, as i think they deserve it. i’ve posted this same thing on several “scam” forums. it’s not a scam.
that being said, there i have found some strategies that i think would win. my advice would be to stay away from any and all “100% off” and “fixed price” bids. these are just bad decisions. i would suggest you find a normal auction, but research and find how high the past 2 auctions got for the same item, and then start bidding when they get about 5% away from the final price of the last one. and only commit maybe $20 or so to each competitions, and stay away from the bidbutler. it detaches you from your money, which is bad.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
The poster above me is correct. This site is not a scam. You all that think it is are fucking retarded. Swoopo actually makes profit from this. Some of the auctions they lose profit but the others, they can gain a huge profit. You idiots are just looking at the price that a laptop or a Wii is sold for and not looking at the rest of the site.
What they do is charge you .75 a bid. Some auctions are fixed price which mean that they sell an iphone 3g for 49.99 rather than the high price that it is. But they make their money off how many bids are placed.
Fucking morons.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I’d just like to note three facts:
1) I can see that this can be a gambling game, but there is some confusion over the use of terms like “bid” — you’re “bidding” as in poker (where the amount you bid is deducted from your pocket, win or lose) and NOT bidding as in an auction. This leads to the reason so many people call it a scam “the final bid price” is completely misleading. They may as well call it quatloos or points to be clearer, because it *isn’t* any form of currency, just an arbitrary counter of how many times “the pot has been raised” (in poker parlance).
In fact, it really IS much more like poker than anything else: the real aim of the game is to be the last man standing when everyone else has stopped bidding — as in poker, if you keep bidding until no one calls, you “win”; if you stop bidding while others continue you automatically lose. The catch? In poker you win the pot (all the bids made), but on Swoopo, you only get a product that costs much less than the sum of bids. I wouldn’t play that game.
2) Labeling the index in units of currency as if it were a price is misleading. You aren’t paying that price for anything. It’s just a meaningless counter. It has nothing to do with anything, but people *think* it does, and it is labeled to encourage that illusion of “bargain” — the only bargain is stumbling onto an auction that is ending and which no one is bidding on — and on an international site, that’s not too likely. The arbitrary US$0.15 “raise” per $1 bid is aimed to keep the “final price” low and looking like a bargain for those who don’t see the game
3) The clincher for me: under no circumstances is swoopo ever *obligated* to give you a bargain. You get them at their largesse. Think about it: how much would bidding cost them? nothing. They can bid to $1 million and it would only cost then the cost of electricity for their computer — they’d get to keep everyone else’s bids *plus* the product to sell again later.
I’m not saying that they are doing this (and only dropping a few bargains to get word of mouth), I’m just saying that I wouldn’t play a game whose rules allow the house to always win at their sole discretion.
January 1st, 2009 at 3:59 am
I do not believe it is a scam. It is easy to see how things work. The site sort of feeds off of human competitiveness, and thus the prices can keep going higher and higher. And by increasing the time each time someone bids, it allows for longer auctions, and more bids, and more money. They are making a KILLING off this site. It is a very intuitive idea, and the global ‘auctions’ only make it more so.
The only thing I don’t like is how easily you can click away your money. Without realizing it you can bid 20 times, just trying to beat that other person. Every time you bid, you give them more time to beat you. Eventually one of you has to run out of bids. And you just wasted $40 clicking trying to beat someone else.
It is gambling, and it’s completely voluntary. Because of my compulsive nature, I will be closing my account as soon as I use my bids. Might as well have some fun with them at least.
If you don’t like gambling, stay away from this site, but if you have impeccable timing or maybe some Irish luck, then maybe it’s a good way to save/make some money.
January 1st, 2009 at 10:36 pm
For those interested, check out ripoffreport.com, this is run by consumers for consumers. Start adding your experiences on the site. If enough people get together about the same issue, then you have the power of numbers against them. There are already 2 reports.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:15 am
I just did a one month analysis of an Apple Macbook on Swoopo. I found that Swoopo is profiting about 200% of the value of items delivered. This was only a small field for comparison - based solely on 1 month (December) of auctions for the same brand/model laptop. My findings were that on one item, in 49 auctions, Swoopo pocketed more than $127,000.
There were some interesting finds, such that they only come out ahead on roughly 50% of all auctions. However, those auctions they profit on include several that earned over 20x the wholesale value of the actual computer. On said Macbooks, the bids on the auction only need to reach $12.83 for them to make one penny. Everything beyond that is pure profit. The average value I found was $51.90. This meant that they grossed and average $3894.15 from all the bids placed (@.75 each) plus the $51.90 average ending price. That brings the average gross to $3946.05, and once you take out the cost of the item at Retail Value ($1299) they netted about $2647.08.
Further example, one auction sold for $0.92. This combined with the profit from bids brought the gross to $69.92. Factor in the cost of the laptop, and Swoopo LOST $1228.92. However, this is completely offset by the auctions such as the one ended on 12.01.08. This auction finished at 248.03, which means they stood to gross over 18602.25 (@.75 each)from bidding alone. Then add in the final value of the computer, 248.03, and you have a gross of 18850.28. Factor in the Retail value of the computer, and they netted a $17,551.28 profit.
I think it is pretty clear they are not losing money, however there is a chance to win a laptop at an extremely low value. The lowest I found was the winner of the $0.92 auction. When it was all said and done, shipping included, he had a 1299 dollar laptop for about $26.14. Just don’t be like user Deafdlg and actually bid so high that the cost of bids are 200 more than the actual value of the computer.
If you would like to see more of my findings, and a complete table showing said findings, please view the pdf I published. Not all values are perfect, I already noticed an error in one field after I published the file, however most of them are spot on.
[url=http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/2184751_j4kfy/Swoopo.pdf]Swoopo.pdf[/url]
January 4th, 2009 at 10:30 am
If you are reading this you probably know that Swoopo is a well designed scam. I don’t think the government can shut down the site, but you can certainly do something by sending emails to Paypal not to do business with swoopo.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
This web site could be 100% profit just by programming in a dummy buyer who always beats the last posted bid before the auction closes. Then they could offer items for sale they don’t even have! Does anybody know first hand of a person that has actually won an auction on Swoopo and had the item delivered to them?
January 7th, 2009 at 11:05 am
I have been following Swoopo very closely for the past few days and was even dumb enough to purchase a small pack of bids that are pretty much gone now. I have to say this website is a MORAL scam, but I believe that they’re making enough off their model that they would be stupid to jeopardize their profits by having “bots” or “employee dummy accounts” to pump up the bidding. They simply don’t need to take that risk, they’re making a killing even by being legit.
Jason’s post back on Dec. 26 hits the nail right on the head. A VERY well written post IMO and all makes perfect sense why some sellers have no choice than to overpay or lose hundreds and have nothing. I think if anyone of us were in that situation, I think we’d rather have something to show for all of our money and overpay rather than walk away. The biggest crime is most (including me) did not do their homework prior to trying to win an item.
After my very long observation of the site. Here’s the deal, plain and simple if you’re dead set on rolling the dice….because you are!
—–>
1. pick something that you were going to buy anyway. a camera for $1200? a wii for $250? a laptop for 1600? these are what the store prices are right? so keep this in mind.
2. be prepared to go all the way and yes…even OVERpay because that’s always a possibility. Although after seeing dozens of finished auctions, I still see people getting their items at a discount, it’s just a matter of how much of a discount. Even though someone used 680 bids on an item at .75 per, the total combined price plus their bids are almost always below MSRP.
2. take a long look at what these items usually have gone for. that’s the hard part because many items are all over the map. set a target.
3. purchasing your bids. I would start with 25% of the MSRP of the item in bids. So if you’re going for the Nikon D90 camera which sells for $1300 in store, start your initial investment of $325 in bids….or somewhere around 400 bids let’s say. This probably won’t be enough, but the last thing you want it to buy a boatload of bids and have a bunch go unused in some fluke auction….right…woudln’t that be nice! If your down to your last 25 bids, then it’s probably wise to add on in small increments as needed, giving yourself time to do so.
4. If you want to save a TON of bids, DO NOT use the bid butler system until you believe you are very close to where the item will sell for…yeah….good luck on that one. On the surface, the bid butler seems like an excellent way to spew a lot of bids, but I believe it’s the way to go when it’s late in the bidding process….again, determining WHEN it’s late in the process is where the luck comes in. It’s the way to go because it breaks peoples spirits when they see this infuriating bid butler continually outbid them. This is a very important psychological tool for winning. At some point people are going to cut their losses and move on.
The other very important point to make is that you need to wait until the current bid buter (if there isn’t one, all the better) gets outbid by single bidders. THEN YOU MAKE YOUR MOVE. By engaging a current bid butter, you will trigger the ever-popular bidding war that puts a lot of time on the clock and burns you through your bids rather than just waiting it out and putting in a bid here and there to keep the auction alive. Just sit and let others take on the current Butler and let THAT Butler burn their bids battling with the singles. Hopefully at some point the BB runs dry. This is all feel based, obviously.
5. Once you engage your bid butler, set it to 75% of the bids you have and ride it out. Remember, your in this to win it, even if it means overpaying. Falling short after investing hundreds of dollars cannot be an option, you have to leave with the item you were going to pay 100% for in the store. This is why you see people overpaying…it’s part of the gamble folks, you might get it at a discount, you might not!
But again, I stress…if you see what the final payment of the item is, it’s almost always substantially below MSRP.
So have I or will I employ this strategy, the simple answer is no. My wife would kill me!! But if I were going to do it, this is how I would go about it.
The biggest point to make is that you need to bring lots of ammo and prepare for a battle on you ONE item. ONE. Don’t throw a bid here and a bid there, you’re throwing money away. Find the ONE item you’re deadset on getting and get it!!
Hopefully you get a deal and don’t have too many leftover bids!!!
Hope this helps those who want to take a shot. Please report back on how it worked. Good luck!
Brian
January 10th, 2009 at 3:17 am
The common thread is that people are drawn in by greed and/or the desire of a bargain.
Yes, the system clearly plays on that magnificently.
Everyone is lead to believe there are different ways to “learn the rules” to play the game. You just play the type of auction that might be most beneficial to you. If you lose, it’s because you haven’t taken the time to figure out the game. There’s even a beginners auction
open only to those who have never won an auction!
(any red flags here)?
You have an addiction, affliction, or weakness? Too bad. (some have said “clever”, “entrpreneuial”, “wish I had thought of that”, “it’s the victim’s stupidity or weakness”; the company’s just clever and should be allowed to capitalize on that”. To hell with ethics if you can make money.
That’s the kind of mentality (corporate greed) that’s put this world in economic chaos.
Guess what folks? You think the losers are the only victims?
After watching several live auctions, I saw what Mal was talking about. You think the auction’s about to end, and it keeps on going. If you use a bot, it’ll cost you more money, and that’s assuming someone else isn’t using one in addition to perhaps a company bot. So you play it out to the end against an individual or his/her bot. Now it’s just you and the last bot. Well your last opponent just lost. You’re likely to lose even more if the “mystery bot” wins. It never suffers from “internet lag” (whatever that means).
Just a little too convenient.
If you like to gamble go to Vegas or any other gambling mecca. Your odds are against you, but not so stacked. You want bargains? Stick with conventional auctions or on line searches.
We’ve all fallen for some type of clever plan to separate
us from our money.
If anyone ever feels like responding to any type of internet offers, please Google them first. Take it from one who has also fallen prey to questionable offers.
That’s assuming they’re transparent. Even though gamblers take risks in Vegas, they assume the house isn’t rigging the game. The same cannot be ascertained with this company.
Why doesn’t the BidBot suffer from “internet delay?” How do we know it doesn’t belong to the “house”?
January 10th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Everyone has been wondering if anyone has actually won and received their item…
I am just your average joe(ette). Decided to give swoopo a try after being on bidstick .com(talk about a scam!!) Made sure I read EVERYTHING first, then bought a whopping 30 bids, watched the auctions for several days before I actually bid on a nintendo Wii. I used 4 bids, and paid 104.00 dollars. The Wii was delivered to my door, brand spanking new, a week later. Why is everyone so upset over this site? Is it because you weren’t brilliant enough to come up with the idea yourselves?
Bottom line….if you don’t like it, don’t play. No one is forcing you to spend your money on what you think is a scam.
January 11th, 2009 at 9:21 am
By the way….I only bid on a nailbiter auction where I knew bidbutler and bots couldn’t be used.
January 11th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I was just about to ask if a BB was bidding and if you bid last second and experienced a LAG!!!
You were lucky—–Try it again with the 26 bids left………….or have they gone already.
January 11th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Don’t forget swoopo show the top retail price of these items, for which swoopo only pay trade, and they are dropped shipped.
January 11th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I would like CHRIS BAUMAN to look into my case above, and give me the answer to my question–above blog.
Oh! dear my blog has been removed from this site??? have I touched on something I shoud not have????????????????????.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Thing is the way to beat swoopo is
Say you want to buy a ps3!, monitor the auctions and bids for ps3’s on their website.
Take the winning fees of all the ps3’s they have sold and find out the avergae fee for say 20 30 different auctions.
When another ps3 goes on sale, step in say when the price is at 70 dollars then use 20 bids and you should win!
January 14th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
No company shill has yet explained Tim Forrester comment from back in October. Well?
http://www.swoopo.co.uk/auction/acer-aspire-8920g-18-4-core-2-duo-notebo/104120.html
and
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-vaio-vgn-fw140e-16-4-core2duo-vista/104120.html
Lusty007 wins (with 211 bids) a Sony VAIO for $171.72 in the U.S. at the exact minute he also wins a Acer for £171.72 in the U.K.
This is “auction” 104120
So which one does Lusty007 pay for? What type of laptop does Lusty007 get in the mail?
So how can one auction have two different items?!?!
January 15th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Chris Bauman explained this earlier:
@Hector, @Duarte, @Dave, the user names of bidders will appear on everyone of our domains. Why? Most every auction that we have is a global auction. So, on the .com site, you will see bidders that have registered on the .de site and are bidding on the same auction. No, Namiansisa is not a bot, or clever shipping magnate. Just a username.
I wondered the same thing as well, but this seems to make sense. So I guess people are not only bidding against other countries, but against four other countries as well…
January 15th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
***That’s why the auction numbers are the same…in fact, it would be more suspect if the auction numbers were different.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Hey everybody - I appreciate the dialog we have going here. I had a thought, though, and I wanted to run it by you all. What if we had a chat room set up where Swoopo users could be logged in and basically “team up” against Swoopo? So, basically, you could have a group of people each placing one bid apiece until all other bidders (those not in the chat room) are no longer bidding. Once it’s just the members in the chat room, you let it run down and one of you gets the prize. You then return the favor for the other people who helped you win yours. Good idea/bad idea? Probably too much greed to see that happen in real life, huh?
January 16th, 2009 at 8:56 am
I was looking at swoopoo and I thought hey what a crazy site.. how can you buy a TV for 30$ . I looked into it and honestly i don’t think there is any scam here. People that are perhaps mad that the owner of this site came up with a brilliant idea can sit back and think for a second. Who is getting ripped off? If you read the FAQ and the How to it clearly tells you it costs .75c per bid. There is nothing miss leading about this. The only concern I have , which is something that happens in all auctions both on the Internet and in person. There is obviously nothing that can stop swoopoo from having an inside guy or a bot drive up bids. That is something that cannot be controlled on this site or even on ebay. I have sold and purchased from ebay myself and have seen that type of thing happen many times, I’ve been to live car auctions and seen inside people driving the price of cars up. So in conclusion, i don’t see any fraudulent activity on this site. Yes its a “game” and should be treated as such. I think most people posting this as a scam must be poeple that have not won anything and feel cheated. Just like when you goto a casino and you play blackjack and roulette and you loose youre pants, you feel cheated but in fact you are willingly playing the game and that is the risk you take.
January 16th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Brian:
The bids appear FOR DIFFERENT ITEMS. As TonyCurtis said, if a user places a bid for a Vaio, how come the bid appears in the “auction” for an Acer?
I just checked this myself, just now. I placed a bid for a Vaio computer on Spain’s site and it popped up on the German site… only it was a bid for an HP! And guess what. The bidders’ list was identical on both sites, same price, everything. In other words, SWOOPO IS AGGREGATING “AUCTIONS” for different items.
This is a fraudulent practice, and should be prosecuted. I would love to hear what Chris Bauman has to say about this, before he’s hauled off to prison, where he belongs.
January 16th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Mike–
You’re right, there’s nothing that can be done about bots or insiders driving bids up like you find in live auctions or on ebay. There are two points I’d like to make however…
1. One could argue that Swoopo does not need to do this as they are making money hand-over-fist by letting the bid sharks do that. By bid sharks, I mean the SAME names that come up time and time again who will stop at nothing to win auctions. They seem to have an unlimited amt. of bids and set their bid butlers on 1500 bids and assume they’ll win the auction under retail…just a matter of how MUCH under retail. Sometimes they get burned as well, but that’s the risk they’ll take. These are the people I worry about. It would make me sick to decide that I want to win this D90 camera and use a ton of bids, only to see “KATZE1960″ or “Koschili” start bidding with their butler.
For Swoopo to tamper with their system would be insanely stupid and financial suicide. It would only be a matter of time before some ex-employee ratted them out. Not to say they’re not greedy and willing to make as much money as possible before someone closes them down. We probably won’t ever know the truth. If they did use bots, it seems pretty stupid to be using the same names over and over again.
2. My second point is that if you follow auctions on items you’re interested in, just about every single one was purchased at a significant discount. Obviously there are a smattering of auctions where the “winner” very much overpayed for their item. But even with all the suspicions, it seems like the most expensive items go at a pretty good discount.
All in all, it’s not a fear of insiders or bid bots that scares me, it those “professional bidders” who, once they’re in an auction, are in it to win it. Swoopo says they limit winning auctions to 8 every 28 days as well as the KIND of items won, but yet I see abuse by people like “Taylererni” loading up on GPS devices. I’m sure you’ve noticed many of the same Professionals bidding on the same items time and time again. It just makes you not wanna bid when you see these names…but that’s exactly what they want! It’s just not gonna be me who makes them pay $3000 for a laptop to “teach them a lesson!”
As far as “THEGOONT’s” plan. Might seem reasonable in theory, but I tried to stay with a camera auction and just drop bids here and there and I found myself following an auction for over 36 hours!! It’s just tough because the end never seems to be in sight on any of these things…
It’s just too bad that this site is pretty much at the mercy of those professionals who just win time and time again on the same items. Can’t say it’s not fair, but seems hard to beat these people.
Maybe we can start a list which flags the professional bidders?
My list seems to be these people:
Taylererni
Katze1960 AND Katze1961 —> suspect!
Koschili
Bidstar
Feel free to add on…
January 16th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
people get upset because they think they can get a TV for 10 bucks, but that never happens on swoopo! if you just use common sense along with some 3rd party research on the site, you won’t lose all your money. just don’t waste your bids early and use sites like http://www.swoopomanual.com for the research and you’ll do WAY better.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
What does the manual say? Can you give us the Cliff’s Notes version??
January 17th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Don’t get me wrong here, I like swoopo and have won on it, but….I just watched a sony vaio auction where Schwein350 placed a whopping 6568 bids ($4,926.00) and paid a final price of $245.75 for a total of $5,191.75. That is for a laptop that retails for $1,813.30! Tell me bots aren’t used and I’ll eat your shorts!
I only bid on nailbiters myself, where bots can’t be used. At least I have a fighting chance then. And it’s more fun, too.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Livvy08,
What if two power buyers are locked in a bidding war, each already invested, say, $1000. I think it would be tough to just kiss goodbye to a grand and NOT have the item I was bidding on….so I do whatever it takes to get the item. That’s my theory at least. That’s pretty sick, though.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I found out about Swoopo about a week ago. I spent my free time over the past week creating a spreadsheet to determine how to beat the game for a flat screen television. I then invested $75.00 in bids into swoopo, worried that it would not be enough, but I was ready to chalk it up to my experiment with my data and how I hoped to beat the game. I used Bid Butler (I used it the proper way, they tell you how to do it on the website, most people dont (or cant) read though).
Anyway, imagine how happy I was when I won a big screen TV for $2.75. It cost me about $40 in bids and another $30.00 ship it. I still have 30 bids left and now I am onto cracking the site to buy a laptop.
If you are lazy and just single bid and have no idea what you are doing you will burn through money quick and feel bad. If you watch, do research and learn a little about human psychology you can clean up. The only thing we Americans are more than we are greedy is lazy.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Sorry “recent winner”, we’re not buying it.
Swoopo are aggregating auctions for different items, which screams fraud. What happens in the other 5 auctions for different items to were participating in, unwillingly? You must have won all six, for your information.
But no, you didn’t win, of course, you’re just lying.
Go collect your swoopo check, you shameless shill.
January 27th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve read through about 70% of the posts here, and it sounds like a TON of sour grapes to me. I discovered Swoopo about two hours ago. I have not registered, nor have I bid. I may never do so. But it’s CLEAR to me from the info on their site that this is an entertainment site - hence the tag line, “Entertainment Shopping.” Duh.
I live in the US - you pay $0.75, not $1, for each bid. You know that up front, so anyone who ends up surprised by how much it costs in the end is an idiot.
The same auction running on multiple web sites in multiple currencies with the same bidders? So? It’s a fairly simple thing to program. Bids from each site processed in a central server, and posted on each international site after converting the currency. Vegas does it all the time - you play a slot machine in one casino, it’s tied in to a central server and the odds are multiplied by the number of casinos that have machines tied in to that jackpot. Instead of you playing for one jackpot on one machine, you and 10,000 other people are playing for one big jackpot on the server. Nobody calls it a scam, and nobody blames the casino if they play stupidly.
I don’t even work there, and I’ve had about 20 minutes to think about it and I get it - it’s not brain surgery.
If a bidder is stupid enough to place 100 bids ($75) in order to purchase a $50 item for $10 plus $4 shipping ($89 total), how does that make it a scam? It just makes it a stupid bidder. But then, I guess it’s easier to blame the vendor and cry about them scamming you than take responsibility for your own idiocy.
Face it, Swoopo hit on a magic formula that seems to be working, and you’re just sorry you didn’t think of it first. Have they tapped into consumer greed? Apparently so. And there’s a problem with this because…?
Hey, all you have to do, if you choose to play the game, is decide how much you want to risk for the entertainment of a chance to get a bargain, then stop when you hit that price point if you haven’t won yet. Easy as pie. It works just like a carnival game. You decide how many balls you’re willing to pay for to throw at a target in order to win the stuffed animal. People end up spending $100 for a $20 stuffed animal just so they can say they “won” it, yet nobody calls it a scam.
How dare you be offended because someone figured out how to make obscene profits on a single item? It’s called capitalism, folks.
Oh, and by the way, in a “real” auction where you show up and bid on items you can put your hands on, the amount of time for bidding doesn’t have a cap on it. Every time someone bids, the auction is extended to allow another bid to be placed before closing on the sale. Theoretically, bidding could go on for days if there were enough people with enough money and interest to keep it up. The primary difference is that at Swoopo you pay in advance for each bid and at an “in person” auction you don’t. But you DO pay a commission to the auction company on the item if you win. Swoopo is just taking their commission up front, spread over all the bidders. If you don’t like it, don’t do it, but stop whining.
There is only one thing I’ve read here in all the sour grapes that I agree with - if you decide the game is not for you before you use up all your paid-for bids, you should be able to cash them in. C’mon, Chris - see what you can do to institute a cash-out procedure, okay?
The bottom line is, if you think it’s a scam, then don’t use the service. But stop spewing your sour grapes all over the Internet. What a bunch of crybabies.
January 27th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Okay, Mr. Bauman (or anyone who defends this site), explain this one to me: http://www.swoopo.com/auction/-1-000-cash-/144316.html
I agree with a great deal of you that Swoopo, on its general pretense, doesn’t need to be a scam (keyword being ‘need’). While Mr. Bauman says they lose money on 70% of their auctions (I’ll take his word for it), we all know they still turn a profit and more than likely, not a small one at that. If the above link doesn’t seem strange, to say the least, how about this one: http://www.swoopo.com/auction/300-freebids-voucher/148790.html
Sure, perhaps they’re just morons… but these aren’t the only auctions I’ve seen end this way. The only explaination (other than MORON) I can come up with is Rich SOB. Tell me, Mr. Bauman, which one is it?
January 27th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Its no scam.. it is however a gambling/pyramid scheme.
if swoopo did a better job explaining their scheme to their unsuspecting customers I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
However, suing them shouldn’t be a problem… using words like “bidding, auction..etc” and making the whole site seem like an auction site when it is not.
January 28th, 2009 at 9:37 am
WE’VE BEEN OVER THIS BEFORE, PEOPLE. READ THE ENTIRE POSTING.
Brilliant site / business plan fueled by:
—–>
MORONIC PEOPLE ACTUALLY BELIEVING THAT THEY CAN GET AN IPOD FOR $1.50 WITH NO RISK.
Shawn - Yes, there are people who burn 390 bids to win 300. Yes there are people who spend $2000 on an item worth $1000. This has and will continue to happen. These people are not casual shoppers. They are not some moron who doesn’t understand the process, they are actually people who know it’s a numbers game….just like Swoopo! Get it? Yes, Swoopo may lose money on 70% of their auctions, but if you look at the numbers (highly recommend looking at the study done earlier in this blog) you’ll see that Swoopo is making a TON of money from that 30%. Simply because it’s a numbers game. The “Professional” buyers are banking on the fact that if they enter their auctions to win at any cost, they will come out ahead more times than not. They simply set their bid butler to a large number and at a huge bid limit and sit back and see how it all shakes out. Yeah, they end up paying $400 for a wii, but their next auction they get a laptop for $250…
A numbers game. It’s a game not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for a casual shopper to try and win. To win and get a very good deal, you better hope you don’t end up in an auction with a professional…because you WILL lose. Period.
And as to “Silentflute,” you’re WAY outta line making threats. You should have done your homework before you spewed whatever money you spewed on buying bids and thinking that there’s no catch to getting a 42inch HD plasa TV for $16. Shame on you. Is blackjack rigged because the dealer tears off a 5 card ‘21′ when you have 20?????
LEARN THE RULES
LEARN THE RISKS
ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES
or DON’T PLAY!!!!!!!
January 28th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Brian,
Thanks for the reminder. You’ll notice that silentflute’s comment has been deleted.
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:52 am
I won ! paid 180 gbp worth of bids for wii + game .. so i broke even if i was to buy it. the only problem is, i have been waiting 2 weeks for the item to come even though they said 7 days ago it had been dispatched and would be with me within 7 days. I recently emailed them to ask where it was and they replied saying they will let me know when they dispatch the item and would be with me within 14 days!
i have again emailed them on this and have yet no reply!! so i know swoopo can be won even though ive been through ‘frozen screens’ losing to the other bidder and escalated countdowns aswel, so either thier system is not working right OR it is working very well for THEM. so beware , even if you do manage to win , whether you get your goods or not is another matter. I am reporting this matter as a matter of fraud to appropriate authorities……..whilst writing this , i have had a reply ……’come to swoopo and buy more bids now for your chance to grab a bargain’….i think they are taking the p***……………..gl all
February 5th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
You do not like Swoopo don’t play it.
If you want to try my website that gives absolutely free advice on Swoopo strategy.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Chris Bauman said - “Third, I wanted to let you know that on 70% of our auctions, Swoopo does not make enough money from bids to cover the cost of the product” on the top of this blog.
Here is the math for one product to prove that wrong:
Philips 47PFL5603D - 47″ 1080p Full HD LCD TV
-Auction SOLD at $149.18 and it is a penny auction so it only goes up by a penny each bid of costing $.75 for each bidder.
$149.18 Divided by .01 = 14918 bids
14918 Times $.75 = $11,188.50
$11,188.50 - $1,499.99 TV price = $9,688.51 REVENUE for SWOOPO! For 1 product listed, take a look and you’ll see lots of products similar
source: http://www.swoopo.com/brw/tv-video_54.html?pge=10&ast=3
It’s a clever idea to make lots of money. It’s simple - this sounds like a gambling website rather for products than money. Bauman, I know making the money sounds like the easy broadpath, and thats just something you’ll have to think about - and I hope you think and see how many losers behind their poor computer and lives loose money and are probably Addicted - but you say they are doing it! well, true, but also aren’t you providing the avenue for it? Your business, your conscience.
Thanks for reading.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Link for above product: http://www.swoopo.com/auction/philips-47pfl5603d-47-1080p-full-hd-lcd-/150130.html
February 10th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I may not be onto much here but i have read close to all the above comments on this page and would like to note 1 particular point i would like to share.
It would seem that it is very difficult to win an item on swoopo?
If your answer to this qestion is yes, then please go to swoopo, locate a random winning bidder ((for instance the winner from the above link provided by ‘Mad Money Calculated’ (Brohaerle)), and simply google the name and nothing more.
Here, this bidder has won 4 seperate items (the first 4 links) and there are many other bidders whom have won considerably more items.
Im simply curious to the methods these users are applying to consistantly win these auctions.
As i said previously, i may not be on to anything whatsoever, and if i have somewhat wasted your time searching i am sorry. For the several winning bidders i goggled though, they had all seemed to have won on several occasions.
February 12th, 2009 at 10:24 am
B-
There are many who claim to “hold the secrets to winning at Swoopo.” etc. and sell their newsletters and “Secret Swoopo Manuals” and all that. I myself have been curious and signed for FREE tips. The latest one was by far the most informative, but still nothing groundbreaking and certainly would not prevent you from blowing a lot of money. In any event, here was the email:
———–>
Did you know that most of the auctions are won by BidButlers?
Yet you might have experienced BidButler sucking up you money in one split second without any return. How come?
Today you will learn how to use BidButler as a powerful weapon to scare off the opponents and grab the best deals without loosing all your bids. Nobody wants to see their bids matched by the BidButler over and over again. When faced with this formidable opponent, your competition might abandon this auction and try their luck somewhere else.
BidButlers work while you do not
Ok. Let me rephrase that. You work too. However, you are busy at your day job. While this is happening, auctions are ending as well. Most auctions end between 10am and 2pm pacific standard time. This is because competition is at its lowest while people are busy doing other things, like earning money. Use this knowledge to your advantage. Set you BidButlers to prices which you expect will appear at this time. This is a bit tricky. If you expect an auction to be somewhere around $200 around noontime PST, setup a BidButler from $201.15 through $203.65 (this is just an example, try to be unpredictable). You have a better chance of winning.
Mistaken notions
Many people knew the above lesson intuitively, but figure that the time that the most auctions end was at night. For reasons we cannot explain, most auctions do not end during nighttime hours.
Never set your BidButler to a round amount
Many people tend to set their BidButlers to the round amount. Starting on $10 and ending on $15. Starting on $200 and ending on $220. This happens often and is somewhat predictable. Be aware of that and you may be able to win an auction just by pressing Bid button right above the round amount that someone has set their BidButler to. Their BidButler is exhausted, they’ve spent their money, and you have a bid above them and the upper hand. This way you can exploit other people’s faulty round-numbered BitButler strategies. When you want to set a BidButler, use uneven boundaries - $11.75 to14.80 to avoid being predictable.
Set multiple BidButlers on a single auction
When there are more BidButlers compete against each other you are very likely to loose a lot of money in a split second. It is very good idea to set few BidButlers at different times to check if your opponents have BidButlers set at a given amount. Use BidButlers with narrow ranges. Instead of having one BidButler set at $10 through $20, it may be safer to set two. It would be better to set one at $10.45 through $10.75 and another one from $18.95 through $19.25. If you had one set from $10 to $20 and another person had one that overlapped it, both of you would fire off a bunch of bids and exhaust both of your BidButlers. It would result in a bunch of money lost.
Also when setting up BidButler you have to consider the auction type. To me strategically it does not make any sense to bid on 100% off or Penny auctions as they can go on almost forever. I think that the best technique with BidButler is to stick to normal auction, pick the average price that the item sold for before and set the BidButler on the price close to that price. Normal auctions can have predictable end times whenever the current price is close to the “recently sold” price.
Have the cash available
Also remember you always have to have enough cash invested. To scare people off you have to show your power. You do not want to run out of money in the middle of the game. This may not seem unintuitive. You need to pay to play. Even though Swoopo mentions 90% off auctions I think these involve pure luck and happen very rarely. It is better to have a strategy and to count on the average 60% savings than risk much more to get 90% off deal. Once you consider the money spent on bids that went to unsuccessful attempts, you will find that 60% off retail price is not that bad.
BidButlers can be very destructive. If you misuse them, they will drain you of your prepaid bids. Beware. However, you can also use them to your advantage.
——————————
I esp. enjoyed the “tip” on having cash available. That’s good to know!! Try this at your own risk and by all means report back! I think it’s just as important to hear from legitimate winners as well as those who have theories on scams….
February 12th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I’ve read through most of these post and agree that this site has a good game going. Its not a scam more like misleading. I sent a complaint after my bidbutler did not continue an auction I was bidding on that ended at $28. Why do they have a counter that reads it will count down at $48? So I emailed them and complained that it wasn’t a fair auction. Today when i went to log it, it had a new terms of agreement and now has the option to refund your bids. I was suprised as the day before there were no refunds. So I’m cashing in my bids and going back to the traditional bidding.
February 12th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
I discovered this site today from a Google AdWords ad… after reading EVERY comment on this blog, I think I understand the game a lot more… and I do not believe it to be a scam… it is the most evil brilliant thing I have ever seen.
A few things I was skeptical about that can be explained.
1) People paying far more for bids than the item costs.
Logic says this is ridiculous. The human condition says otherwise. If you’re in $2000 for a $2000 laptop, it makes no sense to walk away. If there’s 2 people in this situation, it can get incredibly out of hand. Someone will lose. Hope it’s not you.
2) Auctions with the SAME auction ID but having DIFFERENT items across their locales.
Here’s Swoopo’s explanation:
Why is there sometimes a different item displayed on the same auction in different countries?
We do our best to find matching products in all our markets, but sometimes it is impossible to find an exact match. To ensure the auctions remain fair, we always try to ensure that any inexact matches are of comparable products.
I don’t like this, but I understand it. I wish they would only market the same item across markets or else if they can’t, then don’t run that auction in the locale that can’t support it.
All in all this is brilliant. On the morality scale, it ranks below poker. At least in poker, you take home the pot. In Swoopo, you take home an item worth far less than the pot.
If a $3000 TV is up to $250.00 in a penny auction, then Swoopo rakes in $18,750 plus the $250 for the winning bidder…. $19,000 for a $3,000 TV. In poker, you at least get the $18,750.
After studying for hours, I have decided I don’t have the stomach for this game. As a poster said above… Swoopo plays the numbers game… economies of scale. To win at this game, you have to come equipped with a lot of cash and bidbutler. Let the bidbutler cut your losses for you… because once you go emotionally “all-in” you’re done. Find a few items, go with several hundred if not a few thousand dollars, set the bidbutlers and then wait. You’ll find that you lose a few and be out some money… but then find you got a few great bargains as well. If you play the numbers, you’ll win. But you have to pay to play.
February 14th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
If its too good to be true…then it isnt true.
February 14th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
It seems clear to me that penny auctions are the new pixal millionaire. Its not a scam its gambling and profiteering and if you have any sense you will not give them any pennys or cents.
It is clear There are people getting bids for lower prices otherwise why would so many auctions end with users spending £1000 + on bids or they are swoopo staff?
As Shaun pointed out above “what the” ?
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/-1-000-cash-/144316.html
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/300-freebids-voucher/148790.html
Samsung 40 inch HDTV with a massive 16% Savings
http://www.swoopo.co.uk/auction/samsung-le40a856-40-lcd-tv/151885.html
Worth up to: £1,013.99
Placed bids (1469): £734.50
Final price: £114.17
Savings: £165.32
Why? Its just plain greed the thought of getting something cheap drives people to bid even when its as clear as day to me and you that a bid placed at £2.89 for a 50 inch HDTV is never never ever going to last the 15 seconds it takes to win the auction.
This site runs on peoples greed and stupidity and either there are really crazy people willing to spend £1000+ on buying bids or bids are being sold or given away elsewhere or even more sinister swoopo has its on bots operating within auctions.
One final point the few comments that supported swoopo still have not explained the two links given in the first few comments
http://www.swoopo.co.uk/auction/acer-aspire-8920g-18-4-core-2-duo-notebo/104120.html
and
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-vaio-vgn-fw140e-16-4-core2duo-vista/104120.html
This proves its bare faced lie and you never know what your even bidding on.
February 15th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
This is really a scam.
Today I saw a wii for sale. They were buying it for more than $120 of the original price.Right now, its close to 400 dollars
February 16th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Here’s something I got from technologizer:
“MaddyDaddy Says:
December 10th, 2008 at 7:31 am
this is another forum that i have read through. VERY INTERESTING>>>I WAS RIGHT!!!!
He writes:
“I used to work for the company, and I was recently fired for letting a couple of friends of mine win bids. I was paid to keep auctions “alive” in order to improve profitability. Save your money people.”
This was posted within the last few days..”
IT… IS… A… SCAM.
February 16th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Stay away from Swoopo!! I bid on a Canon camera a few weeks ago on Swoopo. As it was getting late, I created a BidButler (a device to place bids automatically for you up to a specified number of bids and a specified price). I authorized 200 bids, at 1 cent ber bid. My BidButler promptly bid all of the bids that I authorized, PLUS ANOTHER 20 BIDS! Not only that, but the bid price on the camera went up only about $1.80 - since the BidButler bid 220 times for me, the bid price should have gone up at least by $4.40 (my 220 bids plus the bids from the person(s) against whom I was ostensibly bidding). Not realizing what had happened, I authorized another 100 bids. This time, it used up all of 100 bids almost instantaneously, but the bid price went up only 1 cent.
When I reported what had happened to Swoopo customer service (a misnomer if ever there was one), they basically said that everything went just peachy and it was too bad that I didn’t win.
I don’t know if there is a deliberate attempt to defraud customers, or if their bidding algorithm is just seriously flawed, but I would not spend your hard-earned money on Swoopo.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Ok so I am truly confused.
I won an auction on swoopo. I won it for $4.50 and my shipping was $4.90.
However, when I confirmed my win I was charged $37 for bids placed? I only made like 5 bids on it. That seems rigged to me. (No, I have not received the item yet, I’ll let you know if I do.)
Now my funny story. I decided “Hey, I got a win let’s go waste the other bids and never deal with this site again.”
I just watched the biggest scam with bots ever. A character Hfwbw1 was using bidbutler. The characters rikarli and acrimidart (don’t remember them exactly) were the auction savers.
Here is how it worked. Hfwbw1’s bidbutler would go off at around 5-10 seconds. However, if the timer reached 1 second, rikarli and acrimidart would both bid to save the auction. I watched this go on for about 2 minutes and then jumped in knowing it was a scam simply because I wanted to get rid of my last 10 bids.
So, what happens? Hfwbw1 would bid with bidbutler then I would bid immediately after him, if the bot messed up and missed his bid (maybe it’s on a timer) the other two bots would save him at 1 second by bidding and adding time to the auction.
AS SOON AS my 10 bids were used up, the bidbutler immediately won the auction.
The site is a scam, I have no idea how I actually won an auction. Don’t waste your money or time.
February 21st, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I just wanna say… its NOT a scam per se… the deals are real …. FOR the people who win but everyone understands THAT the thing is i don’t see any illegality… HONESTLY its just like a fancy-digitized-massive-profit-making-RAFFLE
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 am
It’s legit, BUT…..and this is a big but..
There’s nothing to keep Swoopo from internally keeping auctions alive and pumping up bids with THEIR own bid butlers. That’s all. Too risky to get involved.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up being hit by a DDOS attack.
February 24th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Count me as a person that just flushed $25 down the toilet using Swoopo. I have to think that EVERY swoopo user has blown $$ before learning what’s really going on!
In my mind, something is a scam when thousands of people are mis-lead. I love how the Swoopo employee stopped replying 4 months ago. Maybe the swoopo bosses knocked him off (if ‘ya know what I mean).
February 27th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Awesome idea, grats Swoopo! No, I don’t work for them, I just want to say that this is a great way to make money for the company and a good opportunity to get something cheap. The only time to complain is if you bid 50 times for a $50 item and can’t understand what’s wrong with yourself. (target those complaints inward btw) Other than that, it’s no problem to try to get something cheap when nobody else is looking. If you can manage to bid once or twice and then stop then you are spending a dollar or two for the chance to win big. Who cares if the company makes money because of this, that’s what every company is trying to do. Go get mad at the retailers for their 200% markups if you are going to be mad at these guys. All in all, if you’re not stupid and can limit yourself then you can pay for a chance at a good deal. If the company profits from people’s willingness to do this then good for them.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:41 am
Did someone take swoopo.com down? it’s been down for several hours or has it?
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I reported them to the BBB last week and encourage others to do the same. We have to stop these scammers from ripping everybody off.
March 4th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
It is a scam because;
a) They (Swoopo) represent themselves as an auction site, while they are actually a gambling site. Gambling is betting on an uncertain outcome, staking something on a contingency, or playing a game for money (freebids, cash, bids themselves) or property. (the item listed) Online gambling is illegal in the US.
b) They post numerous items of a similar nature/type in various countries, which are invariably won by one bidder. For example, the same bidder has won a sony viao laptop computer in the US and an acer laptop in the UK. This ‘bidder’ is most likely a ’swoopo bot’ that hyperinflates the prices of items, making ‘real’ bidders fall by the wayside, with swoopo thus pocketing all the change. Too many other examples to list here.
c) If you check closely, you shall see that the majority of winners seem to have won in majority of the other bids (just google the names of the winners and see) and even spend more than the retail price for the product. Some bloggers are terming them powersellers, but if you look closely, they are ’swoopo bots’, ghost winners!
d)Bidbutler/s? Please. Just another way to explain away the scam! For those familiar with bidbutler, you pick a start and end amount, say between $10 and $20, and place a certain number of bids you want to place when the bid falls within these amounts. Just watch the auctions and see how two bidders under bidbutler shall be pit against each other, and in just a few seconds, have their valuable ‘bids’ gobbled up, just to introduce another group of bidders, who fight like gladiators, and inflict mortal wounds to each other, all the while while swoopo (the nefarious emperor) cheers on, giving the thumbs down. The ghost bidders, obviously on bidbutlers, pick up the bodies, and prepare the arena for yet another bloodbath! Entertainment for Swoopo (they call it ‘entertainment shopping’) but a no win situation for the gladiatorial bidders (also called gambling, which is illegal, I repeat)
e) Scams always depend on public gullibility, misrepresentation about the issue in question, a smokescreen to pacify initial disgruntlement (I guess some real people actually win $10 HDTVs or $2 iphones!) and the inevitable escape route! If it walks and talks like a ponzi scheme, it is most likely a ponzi scheme. If not a Ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme. Remember the people burnt by the Madoff scheme Madoff misrepresented the process, just like Swoopo is doing here.
This site shall go down later due to legal reasons and/or bidder fatigue (previously gullible public). The misrepresentation shall be questioned both legally, and more and more by regular Joes who shall have spent money and not won anything. At this time, even posting pictures and videos of ‘winners’ shall not matter. The site shall go down. The escape route? They are making piles of money, which shall insulate them against the inevitable lawsuits, a cost of doing business! Remember, even snakeoil had its supporters, and people wondered what the big deal was ’since everybody knew snakeoil to be a placebo ‘; not everybody knew, and the snakeoil salesmen misrepresented the oil as having true medicinal value. It is the same with the swoopo scam. Please keep off swoopo, send the letters to the FTC, and warn all others to avoid spending their money on this modern snakeoil!
March 4th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I wouldn’t call it a scam. These people that created Swoopo were very smart, thats all. Yes they make tons of money out of gullible people, but what company doesn’t. For those people that say it’s a gamble, well it is, an auction is a gamble as well. I don’t blame Swoopo’s creators for finding a way to make money, but I do blame the people that fall into these type of websites. Look its easy, if you don’t want to be “scammed” then pay attention. I found this website about 2 days ago and I knew right that there had to be a down side, I did simple math and BOOM I knew what was going on. Do not blame people for having a little more common sense than others. I think who ever invented swoopo is very clever. I myself wouldn’t use it because I know what its about, and I don’t like it. So for those people that lost money in swoopo, learn from your experience and grow. Thats what life is all about.
March 4th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I wouldn’t call it a scam. These people that created Swoopo were very smart, thats all. Yes they make tons of money out of gullible people, but what company doesn’t. For those people that say it’s a gamble, well it is, an auction is a gamble as well. I don’t blame Swoopo’s creators for finding a way to make money, but I do blame the people that fall into these type of websites. Look its easy, if you don’t want to be “scammed” then pay attention. I found this website about 2 days ago and I knew right that there had to be a down side, I did simple math and BOOM I knew what was going on. Do not blame people for having a little more common sense than others. I think who ever invented swoopo is very clever. I myself wouldn’t use it because I know what its about, and I don’t like it. So for those people that lost money in swoopo, learn from your experience and grow. Thats what life is all about.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:01 am
I would like to thank all of you for educating me BEFORE I spent my hard earned cash. I came upon the site by chance and it just didn’t smell right and now I know why. As someone has said sometime, somewhere about something else, “if this game ain’t rigged, it should be” and that is enough top scare me away.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Why are we not talking about the lottery? How is Powerball different from Swoopo, except that it’s already established?
March 11th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Lee - The major issue is that of transparency and mis-representation. Nobody thinks that they will win 32 million dollars by buying ten tickets. There ARE, however, many many people out there who don’t do their homework and think that buying a pack of 30 bids on Swoopo for $22 will be enough to win an item worth $1800.
The issue is about deception and taking advantage of people’s foolish optimism when it comes to great deals.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:14 am
You just quoted capitalism - the foundation of the US and several other countries - in it’s entirety, with that last sentence.
Why complain about people being honest, when you’re most likely not entirely honest yourself?
I won’t use Swoopo, personally, because I won’t take the risks involved. I wish I had thought of it myself, though.
Why is everyone so sour? They’re NOT lying to anyone, everything you’ve all said is documented in explanation on the website.
Taking advantage of customer gullibility is not a crime. Lack of education should be.
If you saw a hole in the ground one day that was six feet deep, but it was covered in long stalks of grass, disguising the fact that it was a hole, would you step on it? NO. Of course you wouldn’t. However, that trap is meant to pray on people who don’t pay attention.
I personally subscribe to Darwin’s theory. If you’re stupid, you’re done for.
People really need to get their heads out of their backsides in this country. Stop thinking you need to make $125k a year to live, and acting like sheeple who buy into every so called deal available.
I’ve been living on my own since age 14, I’ve got a son and a wife now, at 24 years old, and I’ve made it thus far without working a full year a single time. Why? I know how to handle my money. Guess what? I pay my bills on time, have credit cards, own 4 cars, and am in the process of buying a house. How do I do this? A little research, intelligence, and responsibility.
When the flat panel TV came out several years ago, sure, I wanted it. Did I spend $3000 on it to replace my CRT that still worked? NO. I waited. Finally, I decided that a slightly larger TV would make my life more comfortable in general, and I could afford to spend up to $600 for it. I started looking around. Not specifically looking for TV’s, that would be a waste of my life. I started just glancing at the electronics section every time I went to the store. I found a floor model on sale for $399.93 at Sears, and bought a 3 year agreement on it, all for less than the $600 I planned on spending.. it’s a 37″, which is 5″ larger than I wanted to begin with.
Patience is a virtue.
As far as Swoopo, it’s not a scam. It’s probably hitting on moral boundaries, and many people who may have thought of it before decided that it wasn’t “nice” to do, thus didn’t do it, but you can’t blame the person who thought of it for praying on the stupidity or gullibility of others… if they weren’t so stupid or gullible, the “scammer” wouldn’t make money.
Those of you who got burned, it’s not for you. Get over it, move on. Get burned at something else. You’ll learn eventually. But stop asking our government to cover your ass when you lack common sense. You’re the reason my taxes are so high.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Same person as above, put wrong name in the name field… that was a response firstmost to Brian, and the rest to everyone else.
To reiterate, the first sentence is to Brian.
The rest, replies to the last (nearly) two years of comments that have been posted about this particular website.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Woops, seems I can’t pay attention to dates well… Obviously, there haven’t been nearly 2 years worth of replies to this… so I’ll rephrase that as well.
“The rest, replies to the last 6 months or so of comments that have been posted about this particular website.”
Oh, and by the way, if I were Chris Bauman, I’d have quit responding too. Simply put, there is a time to fight, and a time to cut your losses and give up on the particular group of people who you know won’t change their minds anyway.
Chris, and the company at large, obviously know that they’re going to lose business because of this blog… but far more “idiots” as you all might call them, will actually go the site, recognize the opportunity presented, and make an educated opinion and choice based on what they see, not all of your bad experiences.
Chris Bauman, and Swoopo.com, are probably thanking the people with negative comments on blogs like this, because people have an inherent “need to know”. Those who see this and haven’t seen the site before, undoubtedly will have after reading your replies.
Bravo for your so called “good intentions” in warning people. ROFL.
March 13th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Basically, Swoopo is no different from going to Las Vegas and playing blackjack. There will be a few who know exactly what they’re doing and know the risks. The vast majority in my experience are idiots who stand on 16 with a dealer showing an TEN and then curse the dealer and casino when they lose their money. They somehow think since they didn’t win that the casino is a scam or that the dealer is cheating….etc. They lay blame on everything and everyone but themselves.
I hope these forums are at least educating some people about jumping into something without doing your homework!
March 16th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Well said, that is exactly what I hope for.
I would rather see 10 fools be educated _about_ something than see that something be prosecuted because 10 fools think it’s criminal.
Bravo, Brian.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Another aucion that strains all swoopo credibility.
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/nikon-d90-12-3-mp-dslr-camera-with-18-10/160335.html
Ty8011 paid $114.77 using 2265 bids plus another 326 free bids (2590 bids and over $1800 in total for a camera that can be had for about half that any day of the week from any number of sources. If it walks like and quacks like a bot then it is a bot
Can someone spell class action lawsuit on behalf of all the bidders who were riopoed off ?
March 17th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Do you people really think that the company would allow you all to see so easily that they were ripping people off? I mean, come on… seriously.
Don’t you think that if an auction were being controlled by bots, which were controlled by the company, the company would have set the bots up to drive up the price to something close to retail, then stop?
Fact is, you’re all being way to critical of what you can see, and you have no reason to be. The last thing a company that is scamming people would do is openly display that people actually spent MORE than something was worth.
Believe what you will, but contact a lawyer and have them look into it, they’ll call you a damn fool.
March 19th, 2009 at 8:05 am
DOUBTER & everone else who wants to post on here for the first time—>
PLEASE TAKE TWENTY MINUTES OR SO AND READ THIS ENTIRE THREAD BEFORE POSTING AN ISSUE THAT’S BEEN SOLVED TIME AND TIME AGAIN.
If you’ve already spent a ton of money bidding on an item, you’re not going to all the sudden give up, are you??? So guess what happens when you give that mentality to more than one bidder! BOOOM. You are now over-extending yourself to make sure you at least end up with the item after you’ve spent all that money on bids.
March 24th, 2009 at 8:38 am
The whole concept doesn’t appear to be a scam… but who is to say that swoopo.com is not doing things to alter the outcomes? Is there anything in place to regulate what they are doing? Even if everything they do is legit and by the book, it’s still a form of gambling. People need to understand that it’s gambling and there is always risk involved with any form of gambling… although swoopo is the bank and they have much better odds on banking the money. They say ‘Entertainment Shopping’ and that is misleading to most, but gambling is a form of entertainment too… and simply put, swoopo is a gambling auction website. It would not surprise me if they do eventually get shut down in the US. If you’re willing to lose $500 on a TV, well you might be better off taking that money to a casino and betting on black.
March 24th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I just googled swoopo thinking I woul check it out, as I had seen it advertised on another site. When I came across this blog, I gotta say even though I’m still goin to go look (out of morbid curiosity) thanks to most of you they will not get my hard earned doller…. thank you
March 26th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
The problem that you dummies do not understand is that the WINNER OF THE BID is a BOT from the actual Company.
The winner is NEVER a REAL person.
In other words, I have you pay 300 dollars for 300 bids for example. You bidded 300x in this cool new TV and since its $1 a bid you wasted 300 dollars on a bid.
The winner of the bid isn’t you or any other real person who bought bids. The winner was the BOT.
The items do NOT EXIST. The 1080P plasma television does not exist and either do the winners of the bids which are always the bots.
In other words, they took a picture of a TV from a google image or website, posted it and said this is for auction, had a bunch of real people bid on it for massive money, then had a fake bot win.
The reason a fake bot wins, is because the item does not exist and if a real winner won, they would never get their item and the scam would be detected easier.
Those 2 posters saying they won according to the IP addresses where posted from the same computer IP as the Chris guy who made the website.
Also he commented with “rofl”… that doesn’t sound to professional to me, sounds like some immature scam artist young guy to me.
In a real auction house, your bids don’t costs any money. Once you win, then you pay what your bid was. If you don’t win, then you don’t pay shit.
They had 500 of you bid 4x each on a fake TV that doesn’t exist that would be 2,000 dollars, then have a botter fake name that they made win and boom, they made 2,000 dollars off real people off an item that does not exist lol. If thats not a scam, then what is it.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
@Jason:
I don’t know how you decided you could make the claims that the posters who said they won were coming from the same IP address. I have them logged as they posted their comments. They are different IP addresses and both are different from the IP address Chris Bauman was on.
I get that you’re mad, but I think your accusations are false libel more than anything else. It’s a dirty, dirty, dirty way to get money, agreed. But I don’t think they need to ‘cheat’ by not shipping actual prizes. Their system is obviously valuable enough that they don’t really *need* to cheat. It’s like saying nobody wins at Vegas. Sure they do. It’s just that the house always wins in the end.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Here’s something for you to think about:
In one of their completed auctions: http://www.swoopo.com/auction/samsung-ln40a650-40-inch-1080p-120hz-lcd/158444.html
A TV supposedly worth $1899 “high retail value” went for $163.61 after the winning bidder had placed 629 bids on it totaling to $471.75 so in the end, he got it for $635.36 which may not be a bad price for him but this is a 1 cent auction which means for the final price to be $163.61, there were 16361 bids at $.75 each, Swoopo made $12,270.75 from the bidders plus $163.61 on top of that so they actually made $12,434.36 on a TV worth $1899! That’s the most incredible thing I’ve seen in a long time and looks a lot like a Pyramid scheme where everyone chips in but in the end the auction house is the real winner. How do they come up with this stuff.
March 27th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
P.S.
After registering and placing 3 bids, the next day I got an email from another user informing me that he somehow got logged into my account “he did not know how it happened” and placed a bid before realizing it so he filed a complaint with them and sent me an email too.
Naturally I closed my account realizing someone else had gotten access to my private information! They would only refund the remaining bids not used on my account and did not care that someone else was able to use my bids.
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I’ve been in the online gaming (i.e., “gambling”) space for more than 10 years and swoopo is NOT ambling. There is absolutely no chance (or skill) required to win a swoopoauction. If you want to win an auction, you can win it almost 100% of the time — you’ll lose a ton of money, but you’ll win. That proves there’s no chance. No chance = no gambling.
Also, I don’t buy the argument that swoopo is internally bidding to keep auctions “alive” to increase their margins. I don’t think the “ex-employee” is credible.
Swoop WANTS people to win auctions and they WANT them to win at very, very low prices. Why? Because a winner is going to tell their friends and that’s going to sell bids. Word of mouth marketing is the most powerful marketing in the world.
As I’ve said, I’ve worked in online gaming for a long time and I’ve worked closely with the leading attorneys for gaming law (both chance and skill) in several countries. This clearly isn’t gambling and it’s clearly NOT illegal.
It’s a brilliant business concept and I hope they do well with it. I love bidding on auctions on eBay, so I’ll probably give it a spin as soon as something I want comes up — it looks like a lot of fun.
Monty
April 2nd, 2009 at 6:44 pm
To think I actually almost bought some bids.. Thank you for saving me some cash. You know what they say - If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Well if if the guy that has everything to lose by not saying “this is not a rip-off” says to everyone “this is not a rip-off”, well hey! then it must be true.
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
For all you idiots saying that this is a scam, take a look at how the dam site works. You DON’T have to keep bidding. The site is NOT tricking you to continue to bid. You can stop WHENEVER you want.
How can you sit there and believe that its the site running a scam, when its the people making bad bidding decisions that cause themselves to loose money.
So if people stop using the site, and your more likely to win, its no longer a scam?
C’mon.
April 3rd, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Correction, to my second paragraph…
….cause themselves to loose more money than they were willing to spend on the chance of winning said item.
Its easy, you set a cap, you don’t pass it. Done. Stop crying.
April 5th, 2009 at 2:57 am
Just some quick math. Swoopo buys tech item X for $900 and places it for “auction” with a manufacturer’s retail value of $1200. Swoopo places this item in a penny auction with bids starting at .01.
The bidding rages on until the item reaches $149.68 in sale price. (What A Bargain!) However, this means 14,968 bids were placed!
Let’s say half these bids were free bids. At .75 each, Swoopo would have still collected $5,613 for this item.
Another quick calculation shows their break even would only be to reach 1200 paid bids. (900/.75) 1200 paid bids plus 1200 free bids would show a break even auction price of just $24.00 A great deal for the winner.
GENIUS! Where can I get on of these sites!- Unless courts decide that this is gambling ( a game of skill or chance) and not an auction.
April 6th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
The purpose of my comment is to provide a deeper awareness for those who may not fully understand what Swoopo is offering. If this post provides you with a deeper understanding of the risk you will be taking (or have taken), I’ve accomplished my purpose. Here is a broader way to view Swoopo (In my own opinion of course.)
Swoopo has created it’s own market and has created the rules in order to influence that market so it can make money. Basically, it’s goal is to SUPPLY enough auctions to match the pace of DEMAND in order to convince it’s prospects (you and I) that the reward is greater than the risk. Swoopo APPEALS TO THE GAMBLER AND ALSO TO THE UNSUSPECTING. It is to the unsuspecting that I write this post.
Swoopo’s business model involves INFLUENCING both sides of the market - controlling the supply and inflating the demand side. Ever notice that the number of auctions generally remain the same in each category? The supply is very consistent. Ever wonder why Swoopo doesn’t just use a dollar for dollar bid system? or why they make the rule that the clock will reset with simultaneous bids? Why are there so many penny auctions? Why are most all auctions “International” and not just the US? These are their rules so they can nearly guarantee their making a profit. Let me explain.
In the Swoopo “economy”, the price of the product doesn’t really determine when the product sells. All the low price does is entice unsuspecting bidders to play the game. It is a tool to PROLONG demand for that auction. The product actually sells when the demand for an auction lets up enough so the clock runs out. In other words, the risk one takes in the Swoopo economy is that the demand will never let up enough for you to win before you run out of money (and/or the nerve) to keep bidding. To help me explain this concept, let me take this concept to each extreme.
At one extreme, suppose Swoopo floods it’s site with 1,000 identical computers and there is just one bidder that is interested (or who knows about it). That bidder would walk away with 1,000 computers costing $10. Swoopo wouldn’t survive. This is obvious. What may not be so obvious is the other extreme (and what most people may not understand).
Taking it to the other extreme, if Swoopo only allowed one computer at auction, and there is a CONSTANT demand for that computer, the auction would NEVER END until the price reached the retail price!!! At this point, new demand would cease and the winning bid would come down to those who are heavily committed to the auction because of the money they have vested in it. After a history of these kinds of transactions, it would be obvious, even to a monkey, that there is no benefit to playing Swoopo. You could just go buy the computer from a reputable retailer with less head ache and risk. Swoopo wouldn’t survive in this type of extreme market either.
Let’s now look at Swoopo’s “economy” based on these two extremes. Swoopo must stay in the middle of these two extremes in order for it to entice customers AND make a profit! They have created their own system that is heavily influence through it’s playing rules and in the SUPPLY of auctions. The rules they have made are to maximize GENERAL demand - to slow the auction down so wave after wave of customers run across the auction and feed a perpetual bidding war. These bidding wars heat up and cool off - they ebb and flow racking up several thousands of bids. On the supply side, (if their business is honest) Swoopo will allow just enough product into the market so there are winners.
Swoopo’s rules slow down the auction process to keep demand flowing and people bidding. One rule is the .01 cent and .15 price increments. These small increments are merely a confusion to unsuspecting people to think it is a good deal so they will play that auction. It takes a long, long, long, time to move the price to it’s retail price a penny at a time. Resetting the bid clock also prolongs the bidding war and allows wave after wave of new demand to prop up these bidding wars. International auctions are yet another way to even out the demand.
In Swoopo’s economy, Swoopo controls the entire supply side. This is very dangerous because it gives them the ability to manipulate auctions at will - no checks, no balances. I’m not saying they do rig their auctions, I’m just saying that there is no one to notice should they choose to. Swoopo places all of the auctions! They give account to no one but themselves.
Take notice that they average about 200 auctions at a time. Also, compare the 200 auctions to the 5 countries bidding on them! Do these odds really make sense? My point is that this not only a gamble, but a big one at that. The odds of winning a legitimate auction, as Swoopo has structured it, are very, very slim. Watch any auction that is in it’s last seconds. Watch how many people are bidding in those last moments. Follow the bidding war for a short while. How many new names do you see join the bidding process? How many times does it ebb and flow when Bid Butlers but heads? Most importantly, notice how the auctions are ending. Do the auctions end because the demand dries up (I haven’t seen one yet) or are you watching auctions with ten active bidders, half new to the scene, which abruptly ends? Remember, there are only three ways to win: No one is bidding, lag prevents bids from registering, or foul play on Swoopo’s part. All I am saying is just watch several for yourself and apply your logic after you see how most all of these auctions end.
I hope my thoughts have helped you see that Swoopo is a gamble. If you are a gambler and accept this risk…go for it. If your stomach churns then forget Swoopo exists and stick with eBay.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
So ive read alot of these post, and i just want to clear one thing up in regards to the 1000 dollar bids.
Lets say you and i are trying to win 1k. We bid it up to 1k. First off, at .75 per bid, weve already lost money. Now its time to cut losses. You can bet your ass( no pun intended) that im willing to spend more money to win the 1k to cut my losses down. For example ive put in 1500 to win 1k and bring my loss to only 500 rather than not winning and assuming my current 1500 loss. Like a few people above me have said, no one wants to walk away empty handed/
April 7th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
btw, its getting late, my eyes hurt from reading this crap, and my math above is flawed, but hopefully someone understands what i was tryin to say, now to watch a couple more auctions (def no intention to buy), after all it is entertaining! =)
April 9th, 2009 at 11:21 am
haha, I joined swoopo when I first saw it, thinking I could bid with seconds left and win. I immediately closed my account when I learned of the scam behind it. I saw a ps3 go for $200, that’s a great deal! they sell on eBay for over $400. But do the math- on the penny auctions $200=20,000 bids, and at .75 cents per bid, swoopo makes $15,000!!
April 9th, 2009 at 11:30 am
and when I say scam, I mean morally wrong, because it isn’t a scam in its real sense, in that the bidder doesn’t have to bid, there are no obligations. You get what you win.
April 12th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I just love how I see all these ignorant IDIOTS whining “Scam, Scam, Scam!!”. That site isn’t a scam. Yes Mr. Bauman leads off about how much they make because that company makes EXTREME BANK! It’s actually a genius, no, incredibly genius auction site. The guy who created it is a freakin’ genius, hell I wished I thought of it before him. The people that sign up on that website know EXACTLY how the bidding goes and KNOWS they won’t get their bid money back once they bid but they STILL BID ANYWAY!!! I would too, I’ve actually made a pretty decent bank off Swoopo this month by turning around and selling it on Ebay.
Penny auctions is where they make SERIOUS money.
I’ll use a nailbiter auction for example. Each bid raises it by $0.15 and can only be done by the person at the computer (not by the BidButler). Say they sell a laptop that’s worth in the stores $2,400. At the end of the auction the winner just bought it for $650. Swoopo just made $3,250 just off the bids alone then you add the $650 for it so in total they made $3,900 off that laptop which they probably only paid $1,500 for.
In essence, it may seem like a SCAM to some people but only to truely ignorant people that don’t understand how the auction is played. The person that won could’ve literally only paid $0.25 in bids and $650 for the laptop for a total of $650.25. They got it for an absolute steal when it’s $2,400 in stores and probably $1,800-$1,900 off Ebay. Everybody wins except the poor saps that gave up bidding on the product but that’s ALL IN THE GAME! You know about that before you ever start bidding in the 1st place.
You just have to read the bidding history and know when to cut your losses short when you think it’ll be not worth it in your opinion.
So in my conclusion, STOP SAYING IT’S A SCAM! It’s not, it’s a genius way to make money while helping out the actual winners pay MUCHO less than what they would’ve in the stores.
I know alot of you aren’t going to like what I have to say but it’s the truth and alot of people can’t/won’t handle it.
Thanks
April 17th, 2009 at 6:48 am
I joined swoopo 2 weeks ago. Spent £25 on bids. And won a Macbook Pro without spending anymore money. I guess I have been lucky but I received the laptop after 3 days exactly as promised. If you dont like Swoopo then dont use it! Its a gambling website not a scam! I am over the moon with my new Apple!
April 17th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
I bid on a nikon d90 many times and for one reason or another was out bid. fine thats okay it’s bound to happen but check out this link for the item: http://www.swoopo.com/auction/nikon-d90-12-3-mp-dslr-camera-with-18-10/169215.html
it’s suppose to be a penny auction but it only lists 26 bids — how’s that possible?!?!? makes you really think how reliable there system is… after seeing this i quickly asked for a refund of my remaining bids.. if it’s too good to be true than it’s too good to be true….